Today I got bit by a zombie, received a chocolate margarita, and was voted the seventh most desirable out of all my friends. The most ridiculous part of my last statement is that more than 50 million people are wasting their time on facebook (which the owner chooses not to capitalize) and its large and unnecessary amount of applications everyday.
A place where we can keep contact with friends and family members who live far away or who may just have busy schedules, sounds like an ideal place, but is that really what facebook is used for?
I log into my facebook account daily and the first thing I notice every time I log in are the long lists of notifications I receive announcing every comment and friend request, which each one of my 54 friends carried out that day.
What happened to a bit of privacy? My home page shows me every single comment every single person has left another person with not only exactly what was left, but a direct link to it. I can’t comment to one of my friends without all of my 54 friends being part of the conversation.
Besides feeling totally violated, I am constantly being compared to and ranked on. As if teenagers don’t continuously put ourselves down on a daily basis, we now are being compared to our friends and notified when our social rank goes down on ridiculous titles such as best smelling, hottest and most kissable.
I can’t seem to decide whether or not being the seventeenth best smelling out of my 54 friends is an achievement.
Not only am I being ranked in superlatives daily, but I’m placed on a popularity scale depending on how many friends call me a “top friend” or add me. If I don’t already feel like a loser, my rank of “You’re almost popular!” will sure do it.
But I have to say, my all time favorite (by favorite, I clearly mean least favorite) application on facebook would have to be the gifts and drinks.
Who doesn’t want to receive a virtual piece of paper on their social community website? Not to mention users actually pay one dollar for these gifts on days they are not free.
To be completely honest, I’d prefer you hand me a dollar, rather than spend it on a virtual birthday cake for my facebook friends to view.
My question is, if this social community is so judgmental, jam-packed and ridiculous, why do over 50 million users log in every day?
Maybe the ranks make some people feel better about themselves or maybe they just enjoy receiving virtual alcoholic beverages. Perhaps some people really do use it as a form of communication with friends and family, or maybe no matter how ridiculous we all know it is, we continue to use it because social communities in today’s society are not only typical, they are, in fact, a bit addicting — just ask America.