(Probably not the last blogpost with this title)
I hate Facebook. There is no other way to express it. I hate it. I was all thrilled for a few nano seocnds, then it dawned on me that I was getting spammed - by friends. Then it further dawned on me, it's communication and connectivity for the illiterate generation. Why compose a grammatically correct sentence in proper English when you can poke someone with a sheep.
Actually, I will qualify my remarks. Facebook is a reasonably good way of communicating one-to-many or many-to-many. I have seen this to some extent in my local CLP. However, long before Facebook, Web 2.0 or the www were invented, Constituency Labour Parties (and I daresay other political parties and similarly structured voluntary groups) managed to communicate - by paper and by phone, then by email and even Yahoo Groups back in the 90s. Facebook adds no functionality and although it increases communication, it does not improve it. I maintain a Facebook presence in case someone from the past might decide to search for me, then we can have an online conversation which serves as a reminder that a shared past and a mutual affection are not sufficient for an active friendship. It's also nice for looking at people's baby photos, where they might be reluctant to share them with the internet as whole but too shy to market them aggressively to all their friends/good acquaintances* and extended family.
Today someone sent me an email titled Facebook for the older generation. When I glanced at the title I thought that they might be drawing my attention to Saga Zone, perhaps because I might have mentioned that I am older than the core key Facebook demograph (too old for Facebook, too young for SagaZone...maybe we should print t-shirts, all us forty-and late-thirty-somethings), and I thought you cheeky young whipper-snapper (actually this person is only months away from outgrowing the key Facebook demograph).
Then I looked at the content and I was offended. Note to Sender: this does not mean that you personally offended me nor did I take offence; it means that objectively, studying the content, I considered it to be of an offensive nature.
I was thinking, this is offensive and ageist; if it was 'Facebook for N******" 'Facebook for P**** & D****" that person wouldn't have sent it to me, their sender wouldn't have sent it them, I wouldn't be uploading it to the blog (and forwarding it to #1 nephew**). I thought, I know lots of 'Silver Surfers' - and how patronising is that. My blogroll goes up to age 80. And so on.
And then I looked more closely and thought - elements of that resemble my life far more closely than a 'typical' genuine Facebook page.
If anyone wants the original, in better quality, to forward onto friends just contact me (obviously, I haven't time to be forwarding to all and sundry, but any of the usual suspects of commenters, the blogrolled, RL friends and rellies and so on, you know, people whose existence I'm already aware of)
* someone needs to come up with a good word to describe someone who is more than an acquaintance but not a close friend - people you share mutual friends with, or used to work with a few years ago.
** he's not on Facebook because he's too young, but some of his friends are, they lied about their age. Funny, Isaid, some of my friends have also lied about their age on Facebook
