I have been sitting on this topic for a fair while now, and have had so many thoughts, ideas and opinions, I’ve found it hard to put pen to paper (figuratively speaking) until now. I intend to post more than once on this matter. Facebook is definitely one of the most widely used social software networks in the world today. Here’s a cool ‘World Map showing the popularity of social networks around the world (Nov. 2008), though it is a little out of date. The question for many remains, ‘Is Facebook worth it?’
Fairly recently I read an article in the Sunday Age Magazine entitled, ‘Off his Facebook’ about a novelist named Chad Taylor who’d recently decided to ‘ditch’ his Facebook account. It’s only available online if you pay $2.20 to the Fairfax newspaper barons, and like myself, I doubt you are keen to pay as much for one short article as you would normally pay for a whole newspaper. The story is simple. Taylor says, ‘you couldn’t drag me back’ to Facebook. He liked it at first, but in the end discovered he only wanted to share his intimate details and daily emotions with his close friends, the type of friends who call you up on the phone from time to time, or who meet you ‘face to face’ on occasion. ‘Facebook isn’t socialising,’ Chad says, ‘it’s broadcasting.’
George Clooney recently was quoted at the Toronto International Film Festival as saying, ‘I would rather have a prostate exam on live television by a guy with very cold hands than have a Facebook page.’ Why are some people so passionate about this one website? My search for the answers has been directed by my own involvement on Facebook, and my subsequent decision to delete at least half of my so-called ‘Facebook Friends’. Wait for the next installment as I look into these reasons further.
You’ve got a book, and you’ve got a face, but do you have a Facebook?
(Image taken from The Lone Wolf Librarian Weblog under a Creative Commons License)
