Change of Plans

How will people's stories change in this day and age?  In a forgotten age, people's stories were, "We met on the subway," or at a school dance, or "I saw her walking down the street and she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw."  Then it changed to, "We met in a coffee shop," or "He sat down next to me at a play," or "I dropped my pencil in class, and before we knew it, we started talking and couldn't stop."  Perhaps you'll meet at a bar or through an internet dating site.  Will someday, people meet through liking videos on Facebook?  

This video was interesting.  Do you like it?  Tell me on Facebook.  ;P

Twitter vs. Facebook: A Battle of Epic Proportions

Twitter or Facebook? Facebook or Twitter? Decisions, decisions! Initially, when Facebook was redesigned for the one millionth time, the "status update" was the hot topic of debate. After all, who cares what you're eating, reading, watching, doing or not-doing at the moment...right? And then there's those really annoying FB friends who update their status 20 times a day. If these are your gripes about Facebook and the status update, then Twitter is most likely not for you.

These were my hesitations about Twitter before I started to tweet and became a Twitter dweeb, more familiarly known as a "tweeb" (Side note: currently researching the copyrighting process for term coinage.) In fact, I only started using Twitter as a tool to update my Facebook status! But nowadays, I find myself getting frustrated with Facebook. It is no longer lightning fast -- when the pictures crank to load, I get flashbacks to the stone age of dial-up connections. ::shudder:: I also am horrified by all of the pointless applications like Farmville and WasteoftimeZoo that spam my newsfeed. Facebook is becoming more like MySpace every day. Which makes me think of pedophiles and creepers. Blech.

Thus, I have found myself enjoying Twitter so much that I have decided that I like Twitter more than Facebook. Oh, the humanity! If you had predicted that this phenomenon would happen when I was a college student, I never would have believed you. I would have screamed "Blasphemer!" right in your face and ran away with my hands over my ears.

Some may argue that Twitter is just "too hard to figure out." Well, I'm sure there's a "Twitter for Dummies" book out there that you can pick up at Barnes & Noble. Or, you could just sign up for an account and troubleshoot. Usually, the Tweebs will show you the ropes, like how to hashtag, retweet, and make @replies. Twitter even has a helpful Twitter support section for newbies. Others bash Twitter for not having the security and privacy settings of Facebook. Privacy, shmivacy. It's not like I'm tweeting my Social Security Number.

What's the point of Twitter? I don't have an answer for you. All I know is that I like to tweet and tweeting likes me. As a member of Generation Y, you have a social responsibility to at least give Twitter a college try. It won't kill ya! (But no guarantees...weirder things have happened.) Happy Tweeting!

Facelurking: Guilty

Facelurk / faes lerk / v 1. the act of stalking via the on-line networking tool, Facebook. 2. a form of procrastination, usually performed when one is at work or bored at home; useage seen most frequently on Mondays and Saturday nights. See also: creeping.

I am almost too ashamed to admit it: yes, I have facelurked. I have facelurked in the past, continue in the present, and will in the future. It is inevitable. Does this make me a creep? Probably. But it doesn't seem so terrible because everybody else is doing it. (Spare me the Brooklyn Bridge analogy.) My brand of facelurking includes browsing people's photos and checking my News Feed for status updates. I will sometimes find myself clicking through the 305th picture out of 1,879 of someone's posted photographs that I have literally not spoken to since Junior High. I then ask myself why the hell I care what outfit this person was wearing on their birthday last year and either close out of Facebook for the time being...or bounce over to someone else's more interesting Facebook to facelurk further.

I do not consider myself a creep because Facebook is inherently a creepy device. I have witnessed people creeping on other people via Facebook. I have witnessed firsthand men lurking through other women's Facebook accounts and rating them: not on a scale of 1-10, but ranking her a "but-her-face" or "hot." I know--ugh! I have also heard of guys creeping on a girls' Facebook to check her "Looking For" status before asking her out on a date. Hello! Do you think a girl really thinks about her "Looking For" status once she has finished activating her Facebook account? Facebook is not meant to be read into that deeply. My advice? Try face to face conversation. It's been around for years. I guarantee you will gather more genuine information that way.

I digress. Why is Facebook used so frequently for time-wasting? Yes, it serves a purpose: it helps us keep in touch with our friends and family. But I bet you five American dollars that you neither speak to nor have active relationships with 9/10ths of your Facebook "friends." Is Facebook just another narcissistic time-waster where we post our status and think that people actual read or care what we are thinking or doing at that very moment (much like a blog, then)?

Or is Facebook something different altogether? Check out this video and re-think your membership to the Facebook: The Truth about Facebook.

Take all this with a grain of salt, as all things, of course. I won't be de-activating my Facebook account anytime soon, but it's all interesting to think about!