Facebook Domination...

Facebook. It is a noun- to describe the Web site-a verb-to describe the action of "adding someone as your friend"-- and a way of life for thousands of College students, professionals and individuals around America and ultimately the world. Is it taking over?

According to Virginia Heffernan in Sunday's NYT Magazine it is. According to me, a 21 year old journalist-- it is not.

Why do I say this you may ask? I say this because as someone who lives, breaths and makes money via online journalism, I can tell you that Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, and every other Web site devoted to social networking is essential to my career. For example, after I complete this post, I will "shrink" the URL, via a widget Digg has recently installed (thereby sharing it with that community) and then I will simultaneously post it to my Facebook and Twitter via either my iPhone applications and/or my desktop widget--Tweetdeck via Adobe Air. This, in the past month has increased my views from approximately 1-2 per day to 9-10 per day. Now these numbers are quite small, but I am writing on a small scale-- if I were a corporation, magazine, newspaper etc (or working for one as I previously did last year and this summer) it would be dramatic.

Facebook allows the generation of "gotta have it yesterday" to communicate with one another, attend events, share news, pictures and ideas and ultimately create a place where they feel save enough to be "them." However, this broad statement allows for a great variety of contradictions on the subject. Some facebook profiles are misleading; some users do indeed use it to stalk ex-boyfriends, girlfriends and "frenemies"; and still others do sometimes go to the extreme and create Facebook pages as a means to a ghastly end. These are, in my opinion, the exceptions to the rule. Facebook, as I said earlier, has become a verb, an action that we use in everyday life. These Web-isms, as I like to call them, allow us to create, share and develop a greater knowledge of the world around us through the confines of the World Wide Web.

From January 2008-May 2008 I lived in Rome, Italy. I learned to speak Italian and I learned to truly be Italian as opposed to simply being "New York Italian." Europeans have a great respect for culture, diversity and their way of life. Americans have a respect for these things as well, however, we constantly aim to improve, to change. It is the very core of our nature-- we are a nation of change; we are the FIRST nation of change and as such our people (our culture if you will) is devoted to being better, stronger, faster and just...more of everything. This is something that often encourages us to "go overboard." Facebook is used in Europe, but it is not as widely used. Cell phones are used in Europe, but again Europeans take a break every once in a while and learn to "smell the roses."

I believe that if, indeed you feel that Facebook is taking over your life, take a hint from our brothers and sisters "across the pond" and simply take a break. Spend time outside, with friends in real time...and to be quite frank, it's perfectly acceptable to use facebook to set up such an event =)