17 May 2009 |
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Because I have no Facebook account! I know, I know: I ought to have a Facebook account. Facebook is the new way. According to the legend, it permits people to keep in touch. That makes it a powerful new social construct. In this exciting new world, you are no longer limited to people to whom you have blood ties, or have met, or have otherwise been introduced to. Viewed this way, it is not difficult to see the attraction in Facebook: you can be under a tree in a remote corner of our planet, and yet have thousands of friends. Everything depends on how you respond to the announcement, “XYZ added you as a friend on Facebook,” or—and I am only guessing—how many people you are willing to invite, yourself. I received my first invitation a couple of years ago. I did not know anything about Facebook, but the kind invitation was from a friend of mine, and I wanted a look at Facebook. But before I could do that, Facebook asked me to register. It was like being asked to enlist in an Okija Shrine before you could determine whether you wanted to be a member. Since then, I have enjoyed increasing numbers of invitations, all of which I ignored. But I longed to be able to tell those who were inviting me that I did not have an account, and did not wish for one. The trouble is that, two months ago, I became really popular. Or so it seemed. For some reason, the invitations started to come in fives. Tens. Droves. XYZs were adding me as a friend at such a record pace I began to fear to open up my e-mail account. Sometimes, I would look at some of the names, usually friends I had lost contact with, and my heart would bleed. I longed to get in touch with them without going through Facebook, but Facebook would yield nothing to me about them as long as I refused to join its army. But why were all these invitations coming at the same time? I had won no honours, local or international. I had not won the lottery. I had not even obtained a new haircut. Then it occurred to me: it was not me, it was Facebook itself! Facebook had put out the word for its members to go out and recruit, recruit, recruit! Facebook must have decided it must find, and enlist, anyone who had access to the Internet! I panicked. I asked a friend who has an active Facebook presence if the site was on a blood drive. He just laughed. I then asked him what miserable luck it took for so many invitations to be coming to me at the same time. Coincidence, he said. Coincidence? My mailbox was filling up quickly everyday, although I did not even know most of those who were sending me those invitations. And then the simple answer came: location, location, location. I had to change my location. I had to obtain a new e-mail address and abandon the one into which all the invitations were pouring. But I did not. When I had first obtained the ‘offensive’ e-mail address, the strategy was straightforward: my full name, at a domain. I wanted it to be simple, and permanent. I realized I did not want my sudden ‘popularity’ on Facebook to separate me from that plan. I am glad to report that I have now run out of invitations from Facebook. The blood drive seems over, and my invitations are down, once again, to a respectable trickle. There is relative peace in my mailbox. A few friends have assured me that I have nothing to fear but my fear. One of them reminded me that, having acquired my first personal computer in the early 80s, I should have no anxiety over these things. He has no idea how wrong he is. In the early 1980s, my PC permitted me room to dream. There was no phone line sneaking in through the back, bringing snatches of the world with it, let alone a cable line or a wireless card. 2009, on the contrary, empties the entire world in my direction even before I have gained the confidence that I can filter it to my own description, or that I can swim with the tide. No: I have no doubt that the Internet is a useful tool, but it is also a useful time-wasting tool. I am learning to summon the discipline to distinguish between both sets of tools, and I am not sure I am that strong. But perhaps I am being foolish. These days, I spend a considerable amount of time trying to catch up with my mail and the days’ news. With some relief, I am finally getting smarter about that task by identifying tools that can assemble my favourite online links in one place and update them with one click. But if I were to indulge the invitations in that mailbox, perhaps a good day ought to start on Twitter, which promises to improve my life by having me answer, frequently, this question: “What are you doing?” What am I doing? Trying to remember who I am and where I am going by getting rid of a multitude of distractions. Among them, I am uncertain why I should perpetually broadcast what I am doing. Twitter promises to reward me with being able to communicate with friends, family, and co–workers. I thought the phone was doing a good job of that, as was my face-to-face contact and e-mail, but apparently, I was wrong. And then I must rush over to UNYK, which advertises itself as the “first smart address book that updates itself,” so that friends, family and co-workers will be forever apprised of my whereabouts. Really? Then I must visit Jhoos, which, when I clicked upon an invitation, turned out to be a dating network ready to put me in touch with members worldwide immediately. I do not look down on dating agencies; one report says that recession or not, they are doing a roaring business. Perhaps not as good as “V,” which turned out to be the site: “OnlineBootyCall.” It promised me untold carnal delights. And then I must quickly visit Plaxo, which promised to help me keep in touch with the people I care about. I would have to maintain a Plaxo account because the good friends who use it do not, for some reason, use Jhoos, or even Tubely, which claims readiness to put me in touch with its members worldwide right away so I can chat with them. There is no information what we are supposed to be chatting about. Then I have to visit LinkedIn, where my professional friends hang out, so I can “network” with people they know and they with mine in the hope that this giant web of skills will be of help to us all in an atmosphere of purely professional conduct with each other friends’ and their friends. In any event, I must make a pit stop at MySpace, to which different friends and relatives have dragged me because they do not like Facebook. I must not neglect Hi5, because some other friends prefer it to Tubely, against which they object because neighbors who signed up later did not answer repeated invitations to chat. The only site left to be set up, upon which I should invest, is a tour guide site. What are sites if there is nobody to keep them in touch with each other? One other thing: Is it just me, or do we need to twitter with the 24-hour rule? Isn’t the day too short today?
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