Social Networking

I have a Facebook account and the longer I keep and use it, the better my perception becomes of how human interaction and social relationships have evolved and are evolving.

Yes, we have more connections with more people than ever before, but most of them are merely very casual, lacking even the semblance of significant depth and genuine commitment. We cultivate virtual farms and harvest virtual crops; we give out and receive virtual gifts; we kick virtual asses; we keep virtual pets; we try to dominate virtual ganglands. It seems as if our friendships are becoming virtual as well. We add hordes of "friends" but do we really make an effort to genuinely know and keep them?

While I have a handful of friends who post links to meaningful information by others, or their own meaningful information, the majority post trifling material that may serve their purpose of making others think that they have deep reflections and philosophies, instead of their crass, conceited selves.

Considerable numbers of photographs are likewise posted: Family events, sojourns, nature, etc., and all these give me insights to the character of the persons who post them, including their agenda. Some genuinely want to share happy or grievous occasions in their lives; others simply intend to gloat or brag. Still others post completely inane and useless visual and auditory material, betraying their personalities which may be described using the same or similar adjectives.

A number of people close to me have at one time confided that they find immense delight in seeing snapshots of the foibles, tendencies, and preoccupations of other people. I must confess that I also share in this pleasure. I would like to believe that it is in our nature as social animals (or in our instinct of self-preservation) that we have this desire to find out what other people and their other friends are up to; whether they may be hatching plots to include or exclude us; whether they are regularly engrossed in some virtual game, or taking useless quizzes, or writing gibberish (a coded language, I think, meant to be understood by gibberish people).

Having said all these, I am quite certain that online social networking is here to stay. It fulfills the human penchant to gossip, to intrude, to boast, and to generally waste time. As social animals, we have reached that level of sophistication where, in the wonderful little windows of our computer monitors, with nary a care if we have disheveled hair, smelly armpits, oily faces, or bad breath, we are able to immerse ourselves in a community, to engage stale and tasteless personalities in the majority, and the very rare gems and treasure troves of the human race.