So I've come across several labels over the past few days which have made me frustrated. For some reason, frustration is easy to remember. This is probably a good thing. If it weren't we would probably keep stubbing our toes and forgetting our keys in the doorway and feeling like life was heaven at the same time. Anyway, here are the labels I've been thinking about in order of most frustrating to least.
1. Friends bot to get more friends! (from an automatically generated gmail add)
Look at this: http://www.friendbot.com/.
Auto accept pending friend requests
• Auto message, comment, or just aprove!
• Sends real friend requests!
• Import users from comments, friends and more
You know what these features sound like to me? You know what I would use as the tag line?
Dealing with your friends has never been easier--streamline your friends to-do list today!!
OR
Losing the friend count competition? Get more friends faster than ever!
And it only costs $55! Certainly worth every penny when I consider how much time I save managing my friends!
What would be really sad is if it autogenerated comments / messages:
- say happy birthday to all your friends on their birthdays!
- tell them they look good in the pictures they're actually in!
- auto reject invitations to certain friend's events and auto accept to others!!
- auto congratulate them on getting married/ having kids/ fill in the blank!!
There are people out there that likely end up having dozens or even hundreds of meaningful friendships out there. I understand there is a need to keep in touch with people. I think it is a very real and important emotion to be able to feel happy for someone when they (finally) get married or get the job they always wanted. Or to tell them that you were thinking of them. But there is something lost when, just because we can keep in touch with friends that we start feeling like we have to. Of course I don't think anyone wants to feel that way, but when time is short and we are thinking about our friends that are actually around us, we will eventually have to prioritize somehow.
I think most of the meaning of friend comes from the time we actually spent with them. I also think we can only really be there as a friend for so many people at a time. I would consider one of my best friends now my red-headed roommate, even though I have had other friends for longer and have considered them my "best friend." Both friends are equally important to me and I would be equally happy for the good things in their lives and sad for the bad things. But I need to know less about my long time friend than I do my roommate. I'll probably get him a present or something, but I won't ever get my long time best friend a present again. Maybe Christmas present. Maybe. If you're reading this friends, I'm making a point, not promises!
I think the problem with facebook / mySpace is that they force us to be there (have to poke, have to write on walls, have to bite this person's vampire) for people, and we just don't have enough time to be sincere. But the expectation is there. So you either spend a lot of time on facebook or you feel disappointed.
Ok, I never got to chocolate skittles or some other labels, but in short chocolate skittles are gross. I might write more about that later.
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4 comments:
I agree. Although Josh and I do compete on who has more Facebook friends, so for $55 maybe I could win the contest...
Ha ha! I've never heard of chocolate skittles. I want to try some!
I suppose that even if you are frequenter of Facebook or MySpace that you could still be anit-social... if you don't want to bit then don't bite. It is all a personal perfrence. Just be you, that is all anyone really asks. :)
I struggle with Facebook because I really don't keep in touch with more than 10 friends at a time, but Facebook keeps insisting I ought to keep in track with 50, 80, 100+ friends. I'm just happy that Facebook lets me create subgroups now: "past friends," "ward friends," "current friends," "BFF," "family people," etc.
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