Facebooked

I got the chance to go to Facebook as a test subject in a usability study. What was frightening wasn’t just the one-way mirrors, but all the equipment to capture my every movement, including my eye movement and where I was looking at on the screen. Now they’ll know my secret that I only use Facebook to look at girls.

All that effort amounted to 50 bucks. Was it worth it? I don’t know. I feel so used…

Speaking of which, I just got a notification about someone wanting to add me as a friend on Facebook. Not knowing his name I had to find out who he was. What I found was that not only did I not know this guy, but he had friends numbering in the thousands, so it seemed clear he was just adding friends at random.

What I don’t understand is why there are people compelled to do that, or add friends with whom they have but the slightest of relationships with. What does it prove? Does it really mean anything? Personally, I’d be really suspicious about people with that many friends. Unreal to say the least. How does that even work? Suppose you have 2000 friends, of which maybe 5% are good friends. That means you have 100 friends that you’d communicate with regularly. Now suppose each one sends you like 1 message in 2 days. Do you know how preoccupied you would be with Facebook just answering messages? I find it hard to believe anyone can manage that many ‘friends’. I hope I never reach that state. I don’t ever want to suffer from ‘friend-bloat’.

So I guess maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but friends are people you meet and can call upon at anytime, not some artificial contact you made at some function and remember through some business card. Or maybe I just don’t get this whole ‘networking’ thing. Oh well…