The language of Facebook diminishes our concept of friends. Of what is considered like-able and not. Blurring the private and the public. It exposes us to our friends, real or otherwise, and for some, it exposes them to their siblings and parents. It becomes an extension of the interactions in the real world, or compensates for lack of it. Though I admire how it connects long lost friends and aids long distance relationships, I wonder how deep the connection is. And how true it could be. Sometimes, it's easy to like something even if you don't mean to. It's easy to tag people in photos, even if it is too irrelevant to them (they're not even there at times). Facebook has become routine, and whether it's good or bad is up to how you see it.
Social networks are good, but we need to let them be just an extension of, not alternative to, the interactions we have in real life. Go out, meet friends. Have a beer or two, some coffee afterwards. Experience, hear, the sounds of HAHAHA and see for yourself how funny an LOL could be. Like a person based not on how witty he can be based on his presence in his Wall, but on how he talks and mingle and socialise in person. (Yes, I understand that some people are socially awkward, but does being cyber literate compensate for it?) Go out there watch a movie, catch a bus going to the beach. Hit the bookstores, eat in the market. Avoid the temptation of logging in into FB places. Drop your camera on the way out of the house. Log out of Facebook and experience the world beyond the Zuckerberg connection. As Tokio Hotel sings it: see the world behind your wall.
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