Emily Yoffe on Facebook
It’s a bit swarmy, in that Sunday supplement style that ‘slice of life’ journalists employ like a long stick so they can poke at things that attract and repel them at the same time. However, Joffe’s experiences in fiddling with Facebook are actually pretty dead-on:
You know how in The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell describes the person he calls a “connector”—the charming, gregarious individual who knows everyone and makes things happen? I’m the opposite of that person. Even within my small circle, I’m always falling out of touch, and I never know what’s going on. But finally, there seemed to be a solution to my isolation that didn’t require me to actually go out and see people. Facebook, the three-year-old, 17-million-member social-networking site once the exclusive province of students, recently opened to anyone. The site has so addictively insinuated itself into the daily lives of those under the age of about 24 that academics are studying how it is changing the very nature of their social interactions. I decided to see if someone old enough to remember when answering machines were a radical communication breakthrough could find someone, anyone, among those 17 million willing to connect with me …
In between the lines she suggests that social networks can actually make our lives richer, by helping us remain connected with those far away, and that we can discover connections with new people. No revolutionary rhetoric, but an almost bland send-up of what is proving to be one of the largest mass movements in the history of civilization.
[Pointer: Sebastian Hirsch]
