What I like about FB?

I’ve been a FB user for nearly 9 months now and I have 97 friends to date (which actually pales in comparison to my friends’ lists which mounts to the hundreds; beside the point.)

But as I go on FB this morning (before office starts of course, and while having my packed breakfast), it occurs to me what I find fascinating about this social networking site. At one sitting I end up having a mini-conversation with all of my friends who have posted something interesting recently. The lists of running thoughts are endless:

“a date with Edward this saturday! *wink*” [[Edward being the vampire Cullen from the Twilight Saga]]
“is watching uru vs ned....while someone is dreaming about uru vs ned.... @_@”, [[as in the seminfinals to the world cup last night in which the dutch did what they came to do – get into the finals of the world cup 2010 after 32 years]]
"goodbye uruguay, hand of god number 2 can only take u so far. should have been ghana fighting it out to be in the final. gonna take forever for gyan to foget about the penalthy miss [[reference to the quarterfinals in which Ghana lost due to penalty miss. but today’s news states that the players will be paid on for their performance in the world cup – now if that’s not rigging I don’t know what is, LOL! ]]

And to each of these running thoughts I get to decide whether or not I wish to participate in the conversation. And if I do, I get to decide if I merely want to acknowledge that I have ‘heard’ their thoughts by clicking the “like” button, or proceed to leave my own comment in the comment button which my friend will be informed of when she/he signs in. This way, we strike up a conversation that might last over a few posts.

There are times when I see attachments or youtube video clips that my friends have left, like a news article on the continued BP scandal that is now reported to create air pollution through the chemical released which reports say mounts to the hundreds of thousands. The post informs me of my friends interests to which i may choose to respond.

for complete article see the link

In a nutshell, FB allows me to stay connected with friends I’ve developed a cyber-relationship with, some of whom I’ve never physically met and others I’ve known since my school days. I appreciate this tool we have in our lives today. as I told a friend from the US, technology has a lot to be credited for the lifestyle we lead today. It has made our world that much smaller and our human contact that much easier.

Disclaimer: I am mindful of the repercussions of ‘easy’ human contact but I won’t get into that now. Suffice to say, one cannot be lonely when one is alone with the computer that is connected online.