Facebook: Wanna Be My Friend?
Facebook is an interesting phenomena because it calls into question the dilemma of “Who was I then? Who am I now? Are they the same people?“
What would someone like Dick Cheney present to a potential Facebook buddy from years gone by? “Hey there! Long time no speak. Wanna go quail hunting sometime?”
Or, how about the ever-so-humbling experience of requesting a “friend” on Facebook, only to have them “ignore” your cordial advances. How could they? Don’t they know who I am? The horror and humility…
Or the Facebook gurus who seem to somehow track your every movement through posts and photos — the all-encompassing “Mobile Uploads” feature of Facebook, which allows the user to share every digitally captured moment with their Facebook “friends.”
Then, there’s a notion that Facebook is a manner of self-expression, a way of assessing one’s self-identity and letting the world know who you really are — safely ensconced in your home or apartment, bent over a keyboard, squinting at a computer screen, clicking on things like, “What Wild Animal Are You?“
Oh, the wonders of the Digital Age. We live. We learn. We Facebook. Wanna be my friend?
(cartoon by Dave Walker)
