Facebook. FB. “The Book.” Regardless of what we call it, we are all mildly obsessed. Don’t deny it, you know you check yours at least five times a day and possibly get your notifications sent to your e-mail and/or cell phone. It’s how you passed the long hours at your nine-to-fiver this summer while pretending to be of some use, and how you put off writing that paper for the third day in a row.
There was a time, four years ago, when Facebook didn’t exist, but if you try really hard to remember what you did before Mark Zuckerberg decided that stalking your friends was cool, you can’t for the life of you figure it out. The Book has many practical uses: You can find out where the night’s events are happening, stay up to date with break-ups and make-ups, and keep in touch with your entire third grade class, including the teacher (weird).
Aside from being extremely pragmatic, it is also God’s greatest gift to procrastination. You can waste an entire afternoon reading your News Feed. (We all say we hate it, claiming that it’s creepy and stalker-ish. The truth? We love it.) When I have piles of work to put off, I go straight for the wall-to-wall feature, a personal fave. What, you think it’s weird that I like reading other people’s conversations? Yeah, I guess it is, but whatever, I’m not above it. As a matter of fact, I bet you will be wall-to-walling as soon as you finish reading this. Though I can’t sing the praises of this social networking site enough, nothing is perfect and, therefore, I have my gripes.
1. Applications I don’t care if you are an Obama Girl or a Hillary supporter, I don’t want to know “Where You’ve Been,” and I absolutely do not want you to throw Mardi Gras beads at me or Vampire Bite me.
2. Facebook members over 40 and under 14 When your 12-year-old brother starts poking your friends and your mom/professor/boss writes on your wall, something is seriously wrong.
3. Sally McWastecase has invited you to join the group “I dropped my phone in the Sound/toilet/my beer! Need Numbers!” You are an idiot and I probably don’t want you to have my number anyway.
4. Kids too cool for The Book Do you think you’re making some kind of statement by not having a Facebook profile? Let’s not kid ourselves, we know you have your roommate’s password and you check the page daily. Suck it up and join so we can friend request you already.
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