It was fascinating to see the fallout when Facebook went down for a few hours last week. Some people actually panicked when they were cut off for a brief time from their hundreds of “friends.” These lost souls took to Twitter with their angst, many of them half-joking that now they’d have to do some real work—or horrors!—talk to real people with voices.
Equally amusing was the reaction to the hysteria, ranging from my favorite (@TheDollSays: “Facebook users are roaming the streets in tears, shoving photos of themselves in people’s faces and screaming, ‘DO YOU LIKE THIS? DO YOU?) to the laconic: (@Randy-412733: Who cares!).
Although I usually check my FB account once or twice a day, I didn’t even notice it was down. I mainly use it to keep up on family news, and a few business-related sites. The fact is, that the Social-Facebook I signed up for a few years ago has been overtaken by Marketing-Facebook and Stupid-Game-Facebook (apologies to my loved ones who actually play that stuff). It’s evolved into another way for people to sell stuff to you, and indulge in inane activities that benefit no one. Who needs it?
So will I give up Facebooking anytime soon? Probably not. It’s part of the social mainstream and as a member of the media I need to know what’s going on, and participate. (I also *blush* like the discount codes from Coldwater Creek.)
But it’s intriguing to wonder what would happen if both Facebook and Twitter went down at the same time, along with MySpace, Linkedin and all the groups you belong to. What kind of withdrawal would you suffer?
