Icon I do not like facebook
H
Herring405 (view)

I've noticed that I no longer get emails.

Years ago I noticed the distinct decline in actual mail, once email had set in. That was bad enough, but at least I had emails. People would actually spend a moment or two composing a message that was directed entirely to my attention, simultaneously providing information and expressing something of the depth of the relationship between myself and that person.

Now, the nieces and nephews and college buddies and coworkers and cousins and far-flung acquaintances and numerous other categories of people . . . they let me know they are alive by taking "quizzes" or participating in games or surveys, for each one of which I receive, in my email box, a notification that someone or other has taken the "how well do you know Jimmy Jones" quiz, etc. (For the record, most everyone fails miserably at every single one of the "how well do you know X" quizzes, which ought to serve as a kind of Facebook Warning).

I go to my Facebook page and see a flurry of "this guy has taken this quiz" and "this cat has joined this fangroup" and so forth . . . and I see messages sent out to no one in particular, saying practically nothing . . . by people I love. Is it wrong to feel grief?

Here is an allegory for all of that, in video form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9cEZhiGPw

Herring405
posted 2009.06.06
[login] | [register]

you need to be logged in to post and reply to message board posts