This is why I hate Facebook

Here are my feelings on this cursed social networking site that has allowed my joy to be stolen today.

On a basic level, the concept of Facebook is good, right? It allows one to maintain contact with friends, to share pictures and to play games together (yay Attack!, one of the main reasons I will continue to put up with the evil that is Facebook).

However, human depravity enters the perfect equation that is Facebook (insert a certain amount of sarcasm here) and allows Facebook to become defiled.

For example, people feel no need to maintain real connections with people, because they can feel connected based on stalking old friends' profiles. I don't need to have actually seen or talked to a person in years, but as long as we look at each others' profiles and pictures and maybe "like" a status every once in a while, we can know almost everything important there is to know about that person's life. (for example, who they have dated, if they are generally happy, why they broke up, where they're going on vacation, who they are really good friends with, what they do for fun on the weekends, how many children they have). Sometimes I'll see someone I haven't seen or talked to in months/years but know a creepy amount of information about their life without even needing talking to them.

Ironically enough, it's a miracle that I'm still friends with some of these old acquaintances on Facebook, because of the second reason I hate Facebook. Facebook is often used to define friendships. For some, a relationship of any sort becomes official only when defined on Facebook. Meet someone on the street? You aren't *actually* friends until you are able to tag one another in Facebook albums. Have conflict in your life? Just de-friend everyone associated in any way with that drama and without even needing to say a word, everyone will know where the lines are drawn. Not only will they know where the lines are drawn, but there's something eerily final about severing connections on Facebook. There's no going back. I have no problem with de-friending people I haven't talked to in years...that's a completely different thing. But to de-friend someone because of an argument or spat...the line is drawn in the sand. Friendships are destroyed by the simple click of a button. The ripple effect moves outward as others realize what has happened... for example, I see that my friends are no longer friends with other friends, and I feel forced to choose sides.

Why have we allowed Facebook to define our relationships? Why is it that we have allowed a cheery social networking site to become a way of twisting the dagger and officially severing ties? I'm not okay with this. I'm not okay with the concept of Facebook for allowing this, and I'm not okay with the people (myself included) who find ourselves tempted to use Facebook for means such as these.

Rant completed.