GroshLink

Thanks to changes in facebook, I joined this summer and have been having a limited usage blast. Now I wonder if a significant portion of the technological population will join, or even if they don't, they'll find their way to me as Facebook Grows Up into the real work of Advertising. Hobbies, musical tastes, hangouts, and favorite travel destinations, posted as part of a get-to-know-you exercise, now help corporations walk with you every step of the way. Their data trackers can take great advantage of the optional up-to-the-minute update feature. Will there be a reaction similar to YouTube's Ad schemes? Then again, what really is a strong reaction, some leave to create their own networking systems or take advantage of another system, but most everyone else (who seem open to befriending people they don't know) just deal with it. There was a day before ads dominated TV. You have to pay or donate to watch whole programming with ads before and after, not to mention in order to get this opportunity.

Not surprisingly in a recent survey mentioned in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 appears to be the number of intimate friends sustained on social networking sites, what you find by those not involved in social networking sites (note:  I'm only at 109 with my number of facebook friends, the average being 150.  Time to push forward?).

In prep for the small group seminar, I've been exploring some helpful texts on community: Organic Community, The Search to Belong, The Connecting Church. How do we initiate and deepen friendship? What does it mean to belong, to particpate in the same story, even a collaborative endeavor which leads to fullness. There is definately a difference in what this looks like when one faces large geographic distances and few face-to-face opportunities. Something I think about as I blog with those close to me, further away (e.g., those which I'll see in Pittsburgh later this week and next), and much further away in some combination of geography, relationship, and ministry (e.g. InterVarsity's National Staff Conference in January, an event which occurs every three years, with Urbana and Following filling in the rotation of the other years).

10/5 Update:  The Fakebook Generation (Op-Ed) For young people, Facebook is yet another form of escapism; we can turn our lives into stage dramas and relationships into comedy routines.