Facebook: The Social Radar System

I've started to notice the total absence of sociability on the Facebooks. It has started to become a weird combination of two things:

1. a training blog
2. a voluntary low-end spy system

It seems we only use it to either post shit we find, think, or feel, or we're scouring it for what other people think, do, or look like. We very seldom talk to anyone other than a forced "It's been a while."

I'm not saying that I'm an advocate for keeping connected with Facebook. If I was I'd be Facebooking all the time and making lots of comments and plans and keeping in touch with all the people from way back when like we always say we will but never actually do. Now I'm finding myself, however, having to keep my head down on the old Facebooks. I suppose it has happened a few times in the past, but it's just an odd feeling. I don't know what is wierder, feeling like I have to keep off the grid or wanting to be on the grid.

For those of you who remember the disasterous Jenn-Charlotte situation, I contemplated quiting the Facebook then. I'm starting to think that it's a not bad idea. Granted, it is a way for people to inform me of things that are happening and for me to look at what other people are up to, but maybe it's time to step up the sociability and kick the network out of this social network. If I want to know how someone is, I should have to try some form of active communication to find out, rather than reconstruct a plausible timeline based on cross referencing photos, comments, and statuses between a number of friends and even friends of friends...

Then again, part of me really likes that. It's like playing Detective. Social Detective. Only like an 8 year old because you don't want to talk to people.

Playing make-believe is fun.