Facebook: The E-World's New Crack.

So Facebook...

How the hell did this happen AGAIN?!?! How is it that there's something more addictive than crack, yet it costs nothing and isn't physically bad for your health? (debate now opened)

Ok, there is all the wasted time, lost productivity, missed sleep, delayed assignments, forgotten conversations, vitamin D depletion, but on the other hand, there are great new ways to catch up easily with friends, re-connect with people long lost, or never expected to be heard from again. Hell, even people that I never thought I'd see on a site like that are diving right in to the thick of things. You know who you are. There are people still holding out, but you'll give in eventually. You also know who you are.

While MySpace had it's blip on the map in the sporting year 2005/2006, Facebook is spreading like wildfire and leaving MySpace a barren, burnt wasteland. It's actually kinda interesting to see the progression. I have recently been swept up in the tidal wave and now find myself completely immersed in its practices: posting notes and photos, writing on walls, messaging and yes, even being poked and poking back. Such devilish fun this poking business can be. I'm sure though, that there are some people out there that wish there could be a different type of poking that could be facilitated by this web page which brings me to the next point.

On MySpace, one of the things that made me pretty much swear off it was the complete randomness of some of the people on there. I can not begin to count the number of crappy emo-screamo-pee my pantso-cry myself to sleepo-never gonna get a real record dealo bands who wanted to add them to my friend list, not to mention the friendwhores who wanted me to boost their friend counts. Having said that, I am mildly alarmed by my friend count on Facebook already. But I digress, On the former, you could randomly look up anything on any given person's page. At least on the latter, you have to be granted access to do any of that or at least I thought you did...

Turns out "creeping" is possible. I was introduced to this term by my sister and her friend Lori. I thought you had to have a direct link to someone in order to view their page, but NOOOOO, not the case as they told me with almost demonic glee. Coming from girls, I should not have been surprised by their joy, but it alarmed me slightly, that these two young women with their heads screwed on relatively straight could freely banter about the joys of creeping. Turns out there are people out there with whom you have absolutely no connection to but you can view their pages as if you were their friend. That prospect is MySpace kinda scary, but at least it hasn't happened to me yet, not that I'd be able to tell, but no random adds yet.

The temptation must be there at least at some point for all of us to want to entertain the inner creep. I've seen that 2 of my exes are on there, but thankfully we're not accessible to each other. Then there's the whole matter of seeing friends of your friends and just losing yourself and wasting even more time checking them out. Surely this craze will be the focus of phenomenology at some point down the line, but for now off to feed the addiction... : P