It's Facebook themed!

So on Friday afternoon as I was waiting to be picked up at the Common's in Lakeside, the RA supervisor was sitting in a long table decorating these long strips of poster paper with signs encouraging residents to apply to become RA's in the semesters to come. The signs read things like 'Do you fit the profile?' and other witty phrases that paralleled to social networking slang. When a current RA passed by and commented on what kind of profile applicants are supposed to fit, she simple replied that it was Facebook themed to catch people's attention. This reminded me of the discussion we had about the Facebook effect in class and how this boom in social networking, which has developed and turned into a completely different animal every time some new application comes out or there's a new update, literally touches pretty much everyone's lives. (Even my grandma has Facebook!)

But to what extent to we allow ourselves to be submerged in the fantasy world of a social network where we literally broadcast (to no one in particular) what we're doing at every second of our lives? We hold conversations and sometimes even get into arguments over virtual means. I have friends on Facebook that I've maybe met once or twice in my life and have held frivolous and not very substancial conversations with; would I call them friends in 'real life'? We spend more time traveling through a person's profile finding out what they do than the time we physically spend with them, or even talking to them. We spend more time virtually socializing than we do live socializing.

This makes me think that even though , yes, we're building links and connections with people sometimes half way across the world, how strong or significant are they?

Social networking and 'The Facebook Effect' have driven people to demonstrate politically, connect with masses and has even allowed people to make thousands of dollars out of little ads. But what fuels ALL the traffic that Facebook gets?

I personally think its the sheer curiosity of being up to date with everyone's lives. After all, its not official unless it's on Facebook.