If you don't like rants, you won't like this.
So I looked at the official Facebook statistics page (My life is just too wild, I know.)
And found out that:
• More than 500 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
The population of the UK is around 61 million...which sort of puts into perspective how many people use Facebook...too many, I think.
It's fun at first, I won't deny it...you sign up, wide eyed and innocent, raising your pretend sheep and cows, having chats using the notoriously ineffectual chat feature, 'becoming a fan' left right and centre. Ah, it's all fun and games.
But then it all starts to get a bit nasty. Statuses are very rarely as inoffensive as: 'Fish and chips for tea, YAY! :)' Instead they are cold and callous insults aimed at other people. Most often these people are 'friends' with the person they're openly insulting, too. (Which raises another debate, why does the average Facebook user have 130 friends, when you actually can't stand/have never even spoken to about 95% of these 'friends'...)
Anyway, I digress. Two of the most common are:
'Hahaha nobody likes you you're (Although they usually spell 'you're' as 'your' which is incorrect and annoying) just a bitch and your friends don't even like you and everyone just laughs at you hahaha :L'
(This is the chav-on-a-power-trip status, the victim always knows who they are and why they are the target of this person's wrath, probably something to do with having the same patent quilted bag or something. Also note the use of ':L' even though this is rendered useless when used in plain text format and not on MSN)
Or
'I think SOME PEOPLE need to get a grip and SOME PEOPLE should consider others as well as themselves, GOD YOU ARE SO SELFISH and you never think of ANYONE but yourself. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY. >:('
(The 'I'm-SO-EMO-it's-all-your-fault-I'm-having-a-teenage-moment' status)
Then these statuses are 'liked' by the friends of the insecure child who wrote it. (Just to reassure them that what they said is correct beyond reasonable doubt, I assume. ('Oh thank GOD, three people 'like' my status, I feel valid now'))
But then there's 'groups' and 'fan pages.' Read these, imagine the 13-16 year olds joining them, and laugh. Laugh a lot, because I did.
...Oh I feel for you, because I've never suffered a broken heart, but at the ripe old age of 16 I'm sure you've had your fair share of soul destroying breakups with Nike tracksuit clad boys.
Now I'm not saying a Facebook group can't be a good thing. Because it can. A group used to raise awareness for a charity is a good thing. A group about a certain failure of a teacher can be good for a bit of light hearted fun. Indeed, but seriously, do we NEED all these?! Did you REALLY invest the physical, emotional and mental energy needed to a) Fall in love b) Have your heart broken, all in the space of the one emotionally draining year that was 2009? I doubt it dear.
Having said all this, I have Facebook myself. But I don't like it, or use it regularly, in fact I haven't updated my status for about a year. (It's just useful to have on a rainy day, you're never short of something to laugh at.)
I'll leave you with these examples of Facebook users from Failbook:
