I THINK MY BRAIN IS FULL

What is the benchmark for whether or not you should add someone on Facebook?

If it’s someone you worked with for a couple of years and got along well with, but never actually spent time with outside of work, can they be considered a friend? Are they a friend if you have them on your friend list on Facebook, but they no longer recognise, or more to the point, acknowledge you in the street? Or, and this is what I’m going to be illustrating with diagrams and formulas, are they just bumping up their numbers to look more popular than they really are?

Facebook and all the other networking sites aren’t really about networking. Networking is management speak for meeting new people, making new connections. Facebook, et al, are about getting in contact with people you used to go to school with, or worked with and displaying your interests to them in a handy, easy to read format, to save you ever having to talk them about the album you just heard, or the film you just saw. The only possible exception to this is myspace, which allows up and coming artists to sit alongside established performers and get in touch with the folk who like them.

I have 119 people on my list. There are probably only about 20 people on my Facebook friends list that I actually consider to be friends. If I’ve ever sent you a personal message through it, as opposed to just ‘posting on your wall’, you’re in the esteemed 20 - though there are a few exceptions to this. No offence to anyone else on the list, but let’s face it, we don’t really know each other, do we? We may have sat at adjacent desks, in a classroom or an office, but that’s not really being friends. That’s just being classmates, colleagues or acquaintances. That doesn’t mean I don’t like you. That just means I don’t know you very well.

These aren’t people I spend time with in real life, so why do they want to display an image of me on their page? Moreover, an image of me urinating on the hard shoulder of the M25? Because they like to look like they know a lot of people. That’s what all of these sites are about: making people who are possibly fairly popular already look like they’re the world’s most attractive social butterfly. People who have a list of, say, 300 friends don’t really have 300 friends. They’re just foolish enough to accept any invitation that comes their way. I’ve put this to the test by locating some people I worked with for a whole month out in Canada. They probably don’t remember what I look like, or even who I am, particularly. But they accepted my ‘friendship’ and haven’t spoken to me since.

Bump. I’m a statistic on someone’s narcissistic acquaintance list. Glorious result.

Below is a diagram that shows the mathematical formula for Facebook:

The maths works!

I think this is indicative of everything that is wrong with the internet and society in general. We all want to appear to be popular, without having to truly associate ourselves with the people in our lives. There are a few choice individuals that we’ll actually spend some time with occasionally, but beyond that, we’re only really clicking ‘accept’ out of politeness. And to make ourselves look like we really do spend our weekends having it super-size with 300 people that we know really well.

Another reason why people add so many ‘friends’, without really knowing them, is so they can take a thousand personality quizzes that require you to bother at least ten of the people on your list, just so you can see your results. I’m going to make a quiz that, no matter what you answer, the results are always “You have too much fucking time on your hands and not enough personality to use in the real world. Please don’t send this to anyone on your friends list, because you’ve already bothered them with 10 new applications this week and they think you’re a shit because of it. You shit.”

Now, post on my wall and tell me I’m wrong.