GetOuttaMyFacebook

Internet Gods, I have sinned: I hate facebook.

I've tried to like it, just as with MySpace, and Friendster, and Tribes before that.

I just don't want random people randomly in my face. Even if I like them. Maybe especially if I like them. Then I feel extra guilty and stupid for not interacting, when at the same time I just don't feel like spending the time and energy it takes. At it's core, I just don't want to respond to a bunch of other people's stuff at a pace that's not my own. I just want to go online, do what I have to do, and go elsewhere. I don't want to have to keep up with a bunch of social crap I don't give a crap about.

Is that wrong of me? Or, more pragmatically, is that the most useful way for me to live? Maybe what I resent is being kicked out of my ADD trance and being forced to focus on someone else. Maybe I should open up more. But isn't anonymity - aka anyone-imity - one of the greatest things about the Internet? It takes out so many dance steps that are required in the meat world. We can get and give as much information as we want, without having to deal with boundaries of identity, swamps of personality, obstacles of social chores and blockades of people in groups.

Has there been a Christian version yet, a Faithbook? If not, it would probably be a winner to start one. For someone else. I can't even stand the secular version, so clearly it's not for me.

But, I'll be on Facebook again, never fear. Probably even tonight. Dealing with friends and such. Social networking is efficient, is good, and is even usually good for the soul. It just gets on my nerves. There's a way to approach it that's better, that doesn't push my real button: my awareness of my need to stay on track.

Nevertheless. Right now, I hate Facebook.