Facebook as Digital Spirograph

August 9, 2010

It’s been about a year and a half since I first reluctantly dipped my toe into the Facebook pool. At first, it was awkward and I found myself flailing about, arms flapping wildly as I tried to understand these new waters. Eventually, though, I got the hang of it, although there are still great heaps of the Facebook world that I have chosen to ignore. One thing I can’t ignore, though.

In a funny, sort of disturbing way, I think Facebook has rewired my brain.

With my journalism background, it’s no surprise that I’ve always been partial to tight writing. Facebook, though, has planted a newer, tighter chip into my brain, one that stands at the ready, prepared to sum up in a single sentence what it is I’ve done or thought about or experienced today. It’s as though a tiny part of my brain is now reserved for third-person observations of the rest of me. I find that a bit weird, frankly.

Facebook does peculiar things to our social circles, too. It is like a giant, digital Spirograph, that toy from our youth in which we’d place a finely-sharpened pencil into a small hole, spinning it wildly in anticipation of some funky, ever-changing geometric design. In its obsession with making connections, Facebook does the same sort of thing, leading our social circles to arc in broader, less predictable, more surprising paths. And so, one digital friend may appear on my radar for a week or so, only to move outside of my orbit again. And we spin and we spin and we sometimes intersect, all the while unsure of who it is that is driving this machine.

There are lots of things I like about Facebook. I like that I can reconnect with folks I haven’t seen in a long time. I like that I can get a quick, reliable answer, regardless of the nature of the question, just by posting that question to my digital friends. I like that I’ve made new friends, connecting with people for whom there is a common thread. It is odd, though, that some of the folks I “talk” with most online I have never had the chance to meet, face to face. I hope that fried chicken and cold drinks will eventually bring us together, in the flesh, forever placing our planets in one known system.

That would be a nice, personal touch.