Facebook crashes, my world crashes (From News Shopper)

Facebook crashes, my world crashes

3:52pm Saturday 23rd October 2010

• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

The website that has five hundred million users worldwide. Allows ‘friends’ to know your exact location via the new use of Google maps and has been under scrutiny of many for being seen to be too invasive, crashed on the 23rd of September. Crashing alongside it, sanity. The anxiety that boiled over the moment access to profiles was no longer was frankly disturbing. Despite the fact that as a young person I am somewhat expected to behave in such a way, I was still shocked by the instant desire to have Facebook running again so everyone could continue mindless baffle with a friend, who they had most likely already seen that day, discussing subjects they had already spoken about, that day.

Facebook.com is seen as either a friend or a foe. For me, it worryingly is becoming my best friend and the source of all the superficial knowledge I could ever need. Having been a user for over two years now, I find it frustrating how I am still stimulated by the boring format that allows me to click through other peoples pictures of their recent parties, or even to read their updated status from the last five minutes, letting me know that they have just eaten some toast, or perhaps they have just seen their cat chase its own tail…. either way, I am embarrassed to admit that I enjoy reading through other peoples mundane day-to-day updates. Shamefully, I not only enjoy reading my friends’ updates but celebrities are just as interesting! Twitter is a website that has recently been established and I see it as a condensed version of Facebook. Its focus is to allow users to simply ‘follow’ another user and therefore have access to each ‘tweet’ the user posts. So what did I do as soon as I realised Facebook was no longer in use? I moaned about it on Twitter…’tweeting’ to my followers how much I missed Facebook and following that, ‘tweeted’ Stephen Fry in an attempt to receive a ‘tweet’ back.

Why do I feel the need to even write an article expressing my unhappiness because of the recent crash? Would it been seen as blasphemy if I did not enjoy Facebook? Am I part of a generation that will maybe one day have a stronger attachment to our laptops than to novels? Or does my guilty conscience reveal that I know Facebook is something I should avoid, in fear of forgetting what human contact actually is? I judge others for logging out of normality as soon as Facebook crashes but I realise now that I too am becoming a follower of the somewhat cult Facebook is.

I feel it is important to discuss this kind of issue not only because it is a topic I have an immediate response to, but the real answer, because I know articles relating to something that the majority of people have in common should hopefully be something that many people can relate to…or not. Over five hundred million users worldwide, I hope that someone else is as disturbingly fanatical about Facebook as I am. Maybe I’ll tweet about this article then update my status to ask if anyone else feels the same as I do…