Facebook and the Face of the Beast

Facebook a Looming Assault on Sense and Sensibility
Some Scientists Say there’s a cure.
By Terrance Gavan
I’m a sucker for new technology. But I have my limits.
I’ve been on Facebook. But rapidly left.
Facebook scares the beejeezuz out of me.
I have heard the stories.
Stories of people with 22,567 Facebook friends.
Pardon me just a moment here. But if you have 22,567 friends on Facebook, you are in dire need of some therapy.
I have two good friends. I’ve had them since university. I find it very hard today as I careen into my senior years, to maintain and cultivate those friendships. We are all three of us really busy with our separate preoccupations and life’s languid streams.
I send them a column once in a while and in the next few weeks we will be Twittering and emailing like fiends because we are involved in our yearly NCAA March Madness basketball pool. We’ve been doing it since college.
It’s just an excuse to get together vicariously, and renew that camaraderie that we negotiated back at the University of Manitoba.
We are busy. We, none of us, two writers and a Manitoba Union activist can afford the investment in another 22,565 extra friends, who poke, nudge, and stream pithy little net aphorisms like LOL and LMAO frequently and with apparent disregard for decorum and the rigors of the day.
We are all leery of Facebook. We are pragmatists. We are old. Wiser. We all grew up Catholic and we know the face of the beast.
We have heard the sordid tales of Facebook addiction. We follow the scary and vaguely loopy stories of Facebook: the bullying and coercive contracts made in the dim wee hours of the morning between 13-year-old girls and their 15-year-old boyfriends.
Contracts made in the subdued, salsa light of a Lava lamp set beside an Apple MacBook Air at 2 am on a Friday evening.
A teenaged girl, Lolita5912, aka Samantha McGilicutty, has just lost a spot on the cheerleading squad and nudges her Facebook boyfriend GothBoy13997, aka Jeremiah O’Hoolihan, telling him that something needs to be done.
“I’m very, very, very angry GothBoy13997. And you won’t like me when I’m angry! I think Amanda Ryan [aka Peachy4944] is such a weasel OMG I hate her! Sure, she can do the 1080 spin with the blunt force splits landing, and her teeth are perfect since those bloody braces came out last spring, but that’s my spot on the squad she took GothBoy13997. She needs a poke, a nudge. She needs to meet with an accident. Got it Goth Boy? She’ll be in the quad alone tomorrow after school. I got HannahMontana19876 to poke her with news of a special cheerleading meeting. LOL! No meeting; except with Destiny? LMAO! The tire iron is in my locker. You know the combo. Time for a good old fashioned Tonya Harding trailer-park beat down GothBoy13997. One good whack to the kneecap and I’m back on the pep squad. You’re blocked from my Facebook until I hear the wail of those sirens and see the whites of a paramedic’s eyes on the quad. Do it for me GothBoy13997. Do it for love!”
You will tell me I’m paranoid. That these incidents form the exception and not the norm.
But, I read the stories and I see the detritus of disappointment in those faces of the lonely, disenfranchised laptop languishers. I see the pasty white skin, the cross-eyed stares, facial tics and carpal tunnel syndrome, all first signs of Facebook palsy, a degenerative malady.
A few recent studies also indicate that Facebook is addictive.
A deep sucking wound on the heaving chest of society. It is disrupting workplace habits, reducing productivity, and slowly eroding our ability to conduct face-to-face conversations.
A University of Victoria Psychologist Rob Bedi says that Facebook is enslaving. “Notifications, messages, pokes, and invites reward you with an unpredictable high, much like gambling,” says Bedi. That anticipation can get dangerously addictive.
“Heroin addicts and alcoholics have it pretty easy,” adds Bedi. “They just put away the needle or flush the Jack Daniels down the toilet. Facebookaholics have the peer pressure and Apple ads. The pushers from the Best Buy Geek Squad are preying on us all, tempting us to the dark side of WiFi.”
Bedi and a group of psychiatrists on the front lines of this War on Nudge say that there may be a solution. “For some people, talking with someone might be the answer,” says Harvard Psychiatrist Manny Dangerfield.
Hah. LMAO! Talking! What the hell is that? Why the hell do you think God gave us opposable thumbs? Ask the brain trust at Research In Motion. We have opposable thumbs so we can communicate via Blackberry. Talking is dead.
But we digress.
This all comes too late for poor Lolita5912, aka Samantha McGilicutty.
At a recent basketball state championship young Samantha was launched 121 feet into the air by cheerleader Rob Luckenwold, aka KarmicBounce666.
As young Samantha completed her 12th twist on the way back to earth, Rob suddenly left his spot underneath the rapidly descending Lolita5912, and sprinted over to high five a pretty young lady in a wheelchair wearing a full leg cast.
You guessed it. The pretty girl was Amanada Ryan, aka Peachy4944. They both turned to watch the empty spot on the hardwood.
Seeing the danger, GothBoy13997 left the stands and positioned himself under the somersaulting McGilicutty. But whereas Rob stands 6’4, weighs 225 pounds and bench presses 459 pounds, GothBoy13997 is just 5’6 and weighs in at about 148. He has carpal tunnel syndrome, myopia, and a bad back. He did his best to catch Samantha, but sadly it did not end well.
Samantha and GothBoy13997 are both recovering in the County General. Lolita5912 is not accepting GothBoy13997’s pokes or emails and her mother is negotiating a deal with Fox for a movie of the week.
We need to do something about this Facebook thing.
Alas, good professor Bedi (aka BediTheJedi1313) offers solace in irony.
“You could join one of the 155 Facebook Addicts Anonymous groups on Facebook itself,” offers BediTheJedi – obviously not taught by Yoda or Obe Wan.
Poke me. I must be dreaming.
DNLOL!
Definitely Not Laughing Out Loud.
And … OMG! Help!
For I have seen the beast … and he is Facebook!n