I received an email note this morning with a request that I join Facebook so that I could be someone’s “friend”, post on their wall, and share photos and pithy comments with them. I have watched this whole Facebook thing up close and personal for about a year or so as my wife and daughter communicate with friends and family literally around the world. It seems to be quite addicting. You look at your friend’s page, they have some photo or video or comment or friend who looks interesting, so you jump to that. You see someone who is a friend of a friend who you request to be your friend. It is easy to stay on those pages for hours every day. The thing that jumps out at me, though, is that use of Facebook is an impediment to direct interaction with other people. We were at a get together the other day with a whole bunch of kids. A couple of those kids spent more time in Facebook on their laptops or other mobile devices than they did playing volleyball, paintball, board games, singing, and all that other good stuff.
Blogs, Wikipedia, Google, Youtube, and all those other very interesting sites rarely give me as much long term benefit as a good book. I am beginning to think about the internet the same way I think about television. There are a few good things on it. We could not live without Skype to talk to Grandma Conchita in Mexico. When you need a map or are in an argument about the amount of rainfall in Bolivia in 1923, it is indespensible. Still, it is a time sink. I am still trying to figure out how to manage our household use of Facebook in particular and the internet in general. I would much rather the kids worked on art projects, the cat tower, book reading, swimming, practicing their instruments, designing Betty Blonde giveaways, and playing with the neighborhood kids then wasting their time on the internet. And don’t get me started on the total uselessness of Twitter.
Update: This article explains, maybe, why Facebook and Twitter have their place.