What is it About Facebook?

What is about facebook that feels so indispensable? At this writing over three hundred million users have signed up for the social networking site (myself included). People have used it to connect with and keep in touch with old acquaintances, and make new ones. Parties, reunions and other sorts of gatherings have been planned using its pages. Surely some individuals have initiated romantic relationships of varying degrees; probably there are now a few 'facebook babies' conceived from such encounters.

Facebook is so popular that an inevitable backlash has arisen. The New York Times has reported this December that groups of high school students plan to "defriend" facebook, i.e., they will only access the site at limited intervals for necessary reasons rather than to fuel their cravings for it. According to www.Insidefacebook.com surveys show that Americans over the age of fifty-five have started to turn away in droves from the site after initially following their younger counterparts.

Even with this reaction, we know that Facebook is not going away. What makes this latest manifestation of technology so compelling? Clearly people lived, worked, had friendships, even families without it for eons on end. It's true that every technological update seems to scream at us and demand our undiluted attention, but facebook was one of those phenomena that has sort of crept on us. It started as a few kids in college hooking up and feeling oh so esoteric about it. Then the rest of the world got wind of it (Note to future billionaires: if you want to initiate a mass movement or trend of any kind, start it as a small and selective club, then allow just a few new members into that club every now and then. Before you know it, it will snowball into something that has no exclusivity, except for the billions you secured on the New York Stock Exchange).

I think it goes back to the prehistoric cave-painting days. Early humans probably spent a lot of time chasing woolly mammoths or whatever was around in order to survive. At night, the few who were not killing each other gathered around to tell tales, sing songs and dance to the rhythms they heard outside the caves. They formed social fabrics of families, clans, tribes, ethnicities and eventually nations.

But people got lonely (and bored) very easily-and still do. Companionship has always been one of those necessities that most people cannot get enough of. That's probably why most of us don't stop making friends after a certain age. In fact, the opposite is often true: we want more and more friends. Facebook is just a way to exponentially increase such connections in a safe and (usually) tasteful manner.

Obviously, nothing is perfect, but facebook is certainly manageable. It only requires some moderation. Just like you stay home some nights instead of always rocking through dawn, in the end simply turn off that computer and engage with the rest of your life. Then you can post it up to your Wall on Facebook twenty minutes later.

New York December 28, 2009