Blog 8: Adbusters

I feel no need to commit facebook suicide; the thought of it strikes me as silly. What would be the point? The author of the article gave his reason for quitting facebook as narcissism and time commitments. Well there are two sides to a coin, and perhaps a third if you think outside the box. As much time as one spends creating a profile, choosing pictures, and ‘thinking of a clever status update;’ one also spends time viewing friends’ profiles and the-like. I have never been a proponent of large groups of friends. I find them shallow and meaningless, nothing more than bonded by a single word. Acquaintances is a better term for the majority of the people that one is friends with on facebook. Still, there is social interaction, there is caring. It is not a giant neon arrow pointing to oneself. The time taken out of one’s day to look at facebook, keep up with ‘friends’ may be antisocial, counter intuitive, but only because one is not doing it in person. In a world like ours, the hustle and bustle sometimes does not allow for this, and perhaps we shouldn’t care to find out this information if we can’t take the time out of our day to go in person, but this is the age of free information, unlimited access, no bounds of knowledge and peoples’ lives are included in that. Those who would keep you from knowledge, for any reason, should be questioned. Facebook may be a crude way to create bonds, but it does none the less. If I were to give it up, I am sure there would be people I meet in class, people in my dorm, and people who have similar ties as me that I would lose touch with. I may never speak to them again, but there is no harm in having a network, in allowing myself the possibility. I would argue that I would win nothing more than a few minutes of my day, and perhaps a few less thoughts about people that I care not for.