The Last of the Mohicans

I'm tired of politics. I'm sure you are, too. So how about if I give us a break?

Several of my friends have been telling me I need to get a Facebook. For those of you who've been fortunate enough to have been exiled on a desert island these last few years, Facebook is a social networking website where you can set up your own page, say whatever you feel like saying on any given day, post links, pictures, etc., and people can leave comments for you.

Sort of like a blog.

I plan to be a late adopter on this deal, as I tend to be on most things technological. I don't have Blu-ray, and I hear it's about to die a slow death. I don't have digital cable or HBO. (I can hardly ever find anything worth watching on the 70 or so channels I've got now; why would I want to pay more for more channels of nothing worth watching to have to surf through, only to find that I should go read a book?)

I don't have HDTV. Several years back a friend was gushing over his, and he said, "You just HAVE to get it!" "Why?" I asked. Knowing I was a fellow football fan, he said, "When you watch a football game, you can actually see the hairs on the players' arms!"

Yeah, that's why I watch football, alright. Though I must admit, when he then presented his argument in terms of the benefits of watching the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Special, I was more interested. (He was a bond salesman, by the way.)

I don't have Tivo or a DVR yet, either, though I'm considering that one. I like the idea of being able to pause a show I'm watching, if for no other reason than to fast-forward through the commercials. (I think you can do that, right?)

So back to this Facebook thing.

Hey look, I already spend way too much time on the computer, which is my chief argument against getting a Facebook. Between e-mail, this blog, a couple of football message boards (one of which thankfully goes largely dormant during the off-season, or I'd never get anything done), writing commentary and articles for our company website, and the occasional music or worship message board - I just don't need more PC time. I need more family time, more dog time, more chore time, more book time, and more guitar time. But not more computer time.

But still, well-meaning friends try to pitch me on why it's a must-have. Here's how the advantages have been sold to me (by people who fortunately are NOT bond salesmen, or they'd be starving):

1. The only people that can view it are people you invite to view it - your "friends."

Well, the only people I e-mail, or whose e-mails I bother to read before I delete them into cyber-oblivion, are my friends. Most of the people on the message boards I'm friendly with, even though I haven't met very many of them. The ones I have met are nice people that I'd be happy to call "friend." And I doubt that many people who aren't friends of mine, or at least "cyber-friends," read this blog, much as I'd like to consider it required reading for anyone who hopes to know anything about economics.

Like Timothy Geithner. (Sorry, I wasn't going to get political today.)

Besides, I don't think I have to worry too much about cyber-stalkers these days. I'm hot, but I'm not that hot.

2. You can very quickly let a large number of people at once know how you're doing, what you're doing, how you're feeling, or what you're thinking.

All kinds of problems with that one. First, if this thing is limited to my friends, that rules out "a large number of people." I don't have that many friends, and I'm fine with that. I prefer quality to quantity.

Second, there are many times when I might not necessarily want everyone to know what's on my mind. That's fine, I don't have to put it out there, right? But, more to the point - there are probably even more times that I might want to let people know what I'm thinking, and they don't want to know.

See, I've seen some of the snippets that people throw on their Facebooks. They're fine - I'm not making light of them. But, really: "Molly's watching 'The Bachelor.'" "William's happy that he got his taxes done on time." "Jerry's fighting a nasty toe fungus."

Who wants to read, "Brian had Chipotle for lunch, and wishes his office windows could be opened"?

Finally, why can't I communicate a quick thought to large numbers of people now? In the time it would take me to log onto Facebook, I can type, "Brian's on his third cup of coffee this morning" into an Outlook e-mail, type my own e-mail address into the "To" field, BCC my entire contacts folder, and voila! Everybody knows what I'm up to.

Then, there are the pictures that can be shared. Well, I can always attach a picture to said e-mail. Or post one on this blog, if I could figure out how. Or post one on the football message board (I have figured that one out). But really, most of my pictures I'd just as soon not share. I don't like most pictures of me, current or past. Maybe that's a sign of a problem:

"Brian has self-image issues, and probably needs therapy."

But the argument I keep hearing is that nobody e-mails anymore, that instead everybody communicates via Facebook.

Well, I have a couple of problems with that, too. First, I fear that just when I get accustomed to Facebook, something else will come along. Just a couple years ago, Xanga was the big thing. Remember Xanga? To the best of my knowledge, it's gone the way of the dodo bird. Next we had MySpace. It's still out there, but it seems to have become the domain for musicians who can't afford a full-blown website, as near as I can tell.

So now there's Facebook. If Xanga was the eight-track tape and MySpace the cassette, Facebook must be the compact disc. But now we have mp3 discs, blu-ray (I don't even know whether that's just for video, or for music too, but humor me), memory sticks, and who knows what else. How long before Facebook sinks into the LaBrea tar pit of technology, only to be replaced by something else - something to which I can't just transport my Facebook page? I mean, it took decades to progress from eight-track through cassette to CD (and I'm not even mentioning reel-to-reel, phonographs, etc.), but just a couple years to go from Xanga to MySpace to Facebook. At that pace, by the time I get my Facebook built, we'll be on to the next thing.

And why don't people e-mail anymore? It seems we're creating a cyber-caste system here. I keep hearing all this angst about the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society. Has this extended into cyber-space as well? Am I a second-class citizen of the interwebs? Don't I have rights? Am I being discriminated against? Is this a hate crime? Can I get a bailout?

I just figure if people really want me to know how they're doing, or to see the funny picture of their cat wearing sunglasses, they'll e-mail me. If not, maybe they're not really my friend.

And that brings me to another point: I'm pretty old-school, and I resist all this new techno-lingo that keeps cropping up. Criminy, I'm still trying to get used to the notion that "text" is a verb. ("Class, conjugate the verb, 'to text.'" "I text, you text, he texts, we text, she's texting, they texted, I have texted, I will text ...")

Now, Facebook has brought us a new verb: "to friend." When one adds someone to their list of friends on Facebook, one has "friended" them. Worse, if one decides to remove someone from said list, they've been "de-friended." How awful. As I said, I have few enough friends as it is. I don't need to be "de-friended" by any of them.

What are the grounds for de-friending? What if I post something to which someone takes offense (like I probably do every day on this blog)? Do I get a message: "You've been de-friended by Susie. Have a nice day!" Do I have recourse? Is there an appeal process? If so, who is the arbiter? Do I need counsel, or can I represent myself? Can I recover the costs of therapy? In the interest of the quest for equality that has gripped America, maybe there should be a policy that before one can de-friend someone, one must first find that person a replacement friend, so that net-net, there is no loss of friends - a zero-sum social cyber-networking game, if you will.

And the new lingo doesn't stop there. There's "Facebook-official." This seems to be largely a high school phenomenon: the rumor mill in the hallways (assuming anybody in high school actually talks to anybody else anymore; for all I know they just text and Facebook one another) says that Ashlee and Justin are an item. But until they each update their facebook relationship status to "in a relationship," and post, "Ashlee's dating Justin!!!!!!!!!" and "Justin's dating Ashlee!!!!!!," it's not "Facebook-official."

How binding is "Facebook-official" status? Are rings exchanged? Is a license required? Can they file a joint tax return? If they break up, can Ashlee get the sub-woofers out of Justin's car in a settlement?

And speaking of breaking up, that practice is even more heinous and cruel in the Facebook age. Kids (and maybe adults) can break up via Facebook: "Ashlee is soooo dumping Justin." Or, they break up in person (or by texting), then rush to update their Facebook relationship status to "single" (aren't all high school kids who aren't married single, by definition?). It's just too confusing for my curmudgeonly mind to grasp.

I can see other possibilities from all this as well. The wife walks into the bedroom unexpectedly, only to find hubby in bed with the neighbor. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" she shrieks. "Uhhh, we're just 'friending.'"

Sorry, I know this sounds like an Andy Rooney rant. I'd like to think I'm not yet becoming Andy, though I do have to pluck my eyebrows with more frequency these days.

But I intend to hold out on this one, to resist the Facebook Movement for as long as I possibly can. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike it, and there's nothing wrong with it. I'm just bound and determined to be the last kid on my block to get it, like I was with DVD players and the iPod.

It's just another of my curmudgeonly tendencies to try and hang on, for as long as possible, to concepts long considered outdated.

Sort of like my advocacy of financial responsibility.