facebook – a few random thoughts
Many of us these days use facebook for various reasons. Most would probably say they post to keep in contact with other people, many of us have ‘found’ each other after many years out of touch. For this it has been a great way to rekindle those old friendships from high school, the military, or old business people from work place over the years.
According to facebook statistics, there are currently 500 million active users; 50% of them log on to facebook in any given day. If you are into the bigger numbers, there are over 700 billion minutes spent wasted each month on facebook. The numbers are incredible and grossly impressive.
Yet, with the millions of facebook users, how many people out there can actually say their facebook friends are ‘real’ friends. When looking at some different profiles, some people have a few friends, some have a few hundred, and others . . . well . . . I don’t think I have ever met that many people in my whole life. But, because we are looking at numbers, the average user according to facebook has about 130 friends. So, if that is the average . . . should we be questioning those that have more than 500 on a personal profile? Are they facebook farmers harvesting ‘friends’ from whatever fertile ground they find?
Now I am, of course, just another statistic. I am an active facebook user, and I pretty much log in to facebook on a daily basis. I am not one who spends excessive amount of time on facebook, so I think it is safe to say I don’t inflate the numbers. I do know 98% of my friends and the other two percent are friends of my friends.
I have seen way more people who update every single aspect of their life.
Every detail, all day & night every waking moment and for those of you who do that or post all the ‘cute sayings’ five or six at a time . . . we are all sick of it!
This is the person who lives on facebook. Checking their facebook is the first thing they do in the morning and the last thing they do before they go to bed. In between, they will usually update their status maybe and additional 10 to 20 times. They usually have it on their cell phone, so they never lose connection with the people on their friends list. These are the people who also report everything in their daily happenings.
“I think I am going to make myself a sandwich and tea for lunch!” posted at 11:55 a.m.
“Great! That was the best lunch ever!” posted at 12:15 p.m.
“I don’t know what to do with myself today. Maybe I will settle down with a book for awhile!” posted at 12:20 p.m.
“Read a few chapters and got totally bored. Back on facebook again seeing if there is anything interesting happening!” posted at 12:50 p.m.
“All that messing around on facebook makes me crave a snack!” posted at 1 p.m.
“When life hands you lemons . . . get yourself some lemonade!” posted at 1:05 p.m.
“Drinking alcohol early in the afternoon. Guessing it is going to be a fun night! ” posted at 1:50 p.m.
“I love tequila!” posted at 2:30 p.m.
STOP IT!!!
I will only do that if the Peanut Butter and Nilla Wafer I just ate was particularly good. And I will admit, I occasionally spam my account with my written masterpieces (Icewind’s Ramblings . . . which I only claim to be masterpieces because I want to hear them called that by someone sometime before I am dead!)
Overall, I guess that makes me about average in the world of facebook account holders. I have a little fewer than 200 friends; I do not play any games; if I want to play a game online I will play Diablo III or Starcraft on Battlenet. I will occasionally share things from other friends that appeal to me or my views.
Enjoy facebook; use it for the benefits it may give connecting us to each other and bridging the distance many of us face from actually sitting down together and having a drink and conversation.
Please don’t be un-friended or purged because you annoyed everyone with mindless posts all day long. Show us your wit and give us something to think about.
Comments