kavisolo.

At the time of posting this, Sagar had already reactivated his Facebook account.

Remember a time when if you wanted to get in touch with someone, you’d pick up something called a telephone and ring them? Yes, I know times have changed, and being a web developer I should be embracing this sort of technology but seriously, this whole Facebook thing is out of control.

I don’t care how many FarmVille points you have, I don’t want to be a vampire, and if it was someone’s birthday today that was close to me, they would get a text message from me the minute they wake up. So what’s the bloody point of Facebook? The truth is I’m well aware of what everyone that I care about is doing right now.

I noticed that my boss Geoff earlier today posted an update about how he was just about to de-activate Facebook. He went as far as to hit the delete button, when Facebook displayed a message telling him certain friends would miss him, that his friends had birthdays coming up, so he caved and didn’t do it. Tactical guerilla marketing at it’s finest.

The breaking point for me was when I logged in to Facebook today, and it showed an ad about staying close to my friends and family this Diwali. How the hell does Facebook know I’m brown, and what’s more, how does it know I celebrate Diwali? I could be Muslim. I’m sorry, but that’s just creepy. So I decided it had to go.

Of course as soon as I saw that I told Kavi. He didn’t think I would do it. But here we are. I told Geoff I just did it and he applauded.

Okay, back to the point. Facebook is, in actuality, a collection of people’s egos mingling on the internet. EgoBook would be a much more accurate name. The word ego is thrown around a lot these days but in the context of this post, I’m suggesting that it is how one perceives the world to look at them. That is to say, Facebook is a portrayal of who people want you to think they are, not who they actually are. It’s fictional. It’s amazing how you can look at someone’s Facebook and try to gether a thing or two about their personality, then meet up with them and real life and realize it’s not at all who they are. In fact, I’ve known people who would go so far as to update their status, then delete it if nobody comments on it. Self-conscious a bit?

The reality of the danger in sites such as Facebook is that nobody reads the fine print. I’m aware this subject has been covered ad nauseum, but we just had a discussion at the office here about a guy who was walking down the street and noticed a picture of his sister on the side of a bus. Apparentely, as he later discovered, the picture had been licensed by Flickr to advertiser, and it was absolutely within their rights, as Flickr states in their registration agreement that they reserve the right to re-sell people’s photographs. That’s pretty scary to think about

I’ll not sit here and pretend like I’m above it or that I’m in any way different from anyone else. I’m just as much a narcissist as everybody else who’s on Facebook, and as my co-workers suggest, I’ll likely be back on it the next time I randomly meet a woman. Further to that, I was just told Facebook doesn’t actually delete any if your information, it just hides it until you log back in again. Weird.

For now though, in the interest of my peace of mind, I’ve decided to enjoy life in the real world for a bit.