I have studiously avoided Facebook because I heard it was a huge time suck, and I’d rather waste spend my time online reading news or blogs. Plus, I’ve already left a Twitter account languishing pathetically by the side of the internet. What am I doing? I’m trying to think up something amusing to write on Twitter.
But last month I caved, and so far Facebook strikes me as enjoyable and peculiar. I’m quite happy to connect with my ‘now’ friends and reconnect with the ‘whatever happened to’s. However, I’ve started receiving ‘friend’ invitations from Mylers across the globe, which just seems very sideshow-y to me. ‘And over here, a TENTFUL OF MYLERS!’ I imagine people lining up to stare at us and pay a quarter to poke us with a stick.
Seems you get out of Facebook what you put into it, and my energy level has been Twitterrific so far. I’ve yet to change my status since first logging on; “Drew got himself a new baby boy” seems like it should carry me to at least Thanksgiving, and possibly Christmas, at which time I can change it to “Drew’s baby boy is almost six months old!”
Getting a close-up of people’s personalities played out online is pretty fascinating, though — even the ones you don’t know. The other day in my news feed, I saw this gem:
“Tim became a fan of Nutella.”
Nutella! Yes! I need to know these things about people. I seriously heart the fact that someone out there loved Nutella enough to start a fan group about it, and that 541,435 people joined it. This is the kind of world I want to live in, where people find common ground through a chocolaty hazelnut spread. Drew is now thinking about Nutella.