Are any of you on Facebook?  A while back I read an article on Facebook about how it's being used by people in every age group instead of just college kids.  After hearing so much about it and how great it is I decided to check it out.  The only problem is you can't check out Facebook without creating an account.  I didn't want all my personal information on there so I created a made-up secret identity and used it to check out some of the people on there (at least the ones who don't have their setting set to "private"). I found a lot of people I went to school with...some of them were good friends I wouldn't mind making contact with and others were horrible people who I never want to talk to again.

       I'm not sure I understand the point of Facebook. The article I read stated that it was a tool to keep in contact with all the people in your life.  But my question is: If these people are in your life already, why do you have to keep in contact with them on the computer? When you join Facebook you have to contact all of your friends who are on there and form a "friends" list.  One of the reasons I made this MSN Space was to have the ability to meet different people around the world, people I never would have met in "real life".  But you can't really do that on Facebook--you can look at someone's page but you have to be there "friend" in order to leave a comment...at least that's the way I understand it. 

       And what's the deal with the status bar?  On all the profile pages I looked at the status bar didn't convey any important or interesting information. They all said things like "Bob is happy to be home from work" or "Betty is baking a cake".  Who gives a shit?! What good does that information do me?  It's not like a blog where they can tell a story about their long day at work or why they're baking a cake. Imagine if you got a phone call every time one of your friends performed some little everyday action: "Hi Marge? I'm cleaning the toilet!  Just wanted to let you know!"  It would get tiresome after a while, wouldn't it?  And what's with the "Poke" feature? On the profile page just below your picture there's an option listed that lets you "poke" someone: "Poke Diane", "Poke Carl". It sounds graphically dirty.  Does anybody use this?  What's it for?  What happens when you "Poke" someone?

      So while anonymously surfing through the different names of people I know (or used to know) I found some people I went to school with who I haven't talked to in twenty years.  It was interesting to look through their pictures to see what they look like now,  but to be honest, some of them didn't look too good...the years have not been kind.  It was fun to see these people again but I don't know what I would say to them now...what do you say to people you haven't seen in twenty years?  They're pretty much strangers at that point, aren't they?

      It seems like there are some people who are on Facebook several times a day, which I can't imagine doing.  So if any of you use Facebook I'd be curious to know what you use it for and how often you're on there.  And if you're on Facebook and happen to come across my secret identity be sure to give him a "poke".