emac 2322 Facebook ≠ Reality

Did you know Facebook is worth 15 billion dollars and has over 400 million users? Chances are if you are reading this then you have an account unless of course you are my EMAC professor. He has chosen not to give into the Facebook craze, and for good reasons, and therefore assigned the class to cut ties with the service for an entire week. Aside from the obvious no logging in we weren't to ask friends to report Facebook findings to us either. My first thought was that it would be challenging and annoying to not know what's going on.

I've discovered just the opposite. I didn't care to check Facebook and realized that the annoying part IS knowing what everyone is up to. It's convenient in moderation to stay in the loop but becomes just ridiculous when we become obsessed.

So why do we have this obsession with keeping up with Facebook feeling like we have to see every post, picture, and comment that people spit out? I think we sometimes mistake Facebook and other social sites for reality. We get so caught up in what everyone is saying they are doing that we live in this sphere of knowing what's going on but never doing anything ourselves. Why? It's easy. Easy to keep a Facebook friendship but what about our real friendships? These should be the most important but more and more people are not hanging out with each other in person but rather across the internet. This is sad but true. So snap back to reality! Go have lunch with a friend or watch a movie rather than send them a bumper sticker.