Facebook Relationships

What is it about Facebook that has the world going crazy? I mean, I can understand it to an extent. People have no time and it's a great way to keep in touch with folks who live all over the world. I, for one, joined Facebook in college to save money on a banner ad for a fund-raising event that was being held by organization that I was involved with. I stayed on as more and more people from my former life in Kenya started appearing on the scene. People who lived all over the world, and who I could now keep in touch with and see their lives via photos etc. Awesome. Great.

So, what's the problem, you may ask? Well - Facebook has reduced friendships and relationships to a friendly poke and a two-line wall post. There were days where people visited each other. Then came phones era and people started calling. This reduced the need to interact with others face-to-face. Enter email. People started emailing each other - thereby eliminating the need to actually hear each others' voices. Then comes the world of Instant Messaging. Where conversations are held via acronymized sentences: 'it's g8', 'r u there' 'c u l8r'.

Into this already fast-paced-no-need-to-have-human-interactions world, enters Facebook. While comments and wall posts are great, I wonder - does it reduce the need to have real friendships? I have lots of friends at varying levels of intimacy. We all do. However, how many times have I tried to get to know someone beyond the 'good-laughs-good-times'? To actually make time to get to know people? To put up with a friends' cribbyness? Or is just easier to comment on a picture or a status update and simply shut the person out via clicking away from their profile after you're done?

Facebook and online social networking has opened up a whole new way of interacting others. But somehow I think it has also created a culture of not investing in the people right next to us. We tend to keep in touch with people far away, but not really find out who our next door neighbor is. And more so, it has created a culture of reducing friendships/relationships to a friendly 2-min stalk-fest. And that makes me think, this Facebook thing is overrated. :)