Last week I entered a room that could one day hold everyone I have ever known.
This room is Facebook, a social Web site frequented by 150 million people. From my friends I knew it was a way to connect with pretty much anyone I had ever met in my entire life. I was reluctant.
Did I really want to strike up a conversation with someone I went to church camp with when I was 9?
Also, I didn't feel like I needed another Web site to tend to. I prefer basking in the sun to the glow of the computer screen, but when five people in one week asked me, "Are you on Facebook?" I figured it was my duty as a reporter to investigate, or at least I could use that excuse.
Facebook was a domain only for college students until 2006, when it opened to everyone. Its fastest growing demographic is people 30 and older. That would be many in my "social network," as the site calls it.
I went on the site and created my profile, which can be as little or as much information as you want. Facebook uses some of this information, like schools attended, to connect you to people you may know. These people's names and "profile photos," which can be anything, appear on your homepage in a neverending stream of familiar and unfamiliar faces. It was captivating. See someone you know and click to "invite" them to be your "friend." They can "accept" or "ignore" you.
I sent out a few invites and logged off for the night.
The next morning I couldn't wait to get to my computer and see who had shown up.
In less than 24 hours I had 15 friends on my "wall," including two old, good friends I hadn't talked to in several years. I'd also received requests from people who wanted to be my friend, including a childhood neighbor. We'd never really hung out together and I hadn't thought of her in 20 years, but after a brief exchange, it was good to hear she was well in Oklahoma.
At the same time I added her as a friend (I was learning that Facebook is changing what that means), I was having an ongoing exchange with a close high school friend who'd moved to Chicago, another in Wyoming, and friends in Lewiston, Clarkston, Troy, Moscow and Montana. It was like wandering around in a big room full of people you know all talking at once.
Part of the running commentary is "status updates," which people write by filling in the ever-present box at the top of the page. On mine it begins, "Jennifer is ..."
The things my friends were doing were, "going skiing," "making coffee," "watching my son throw toys in the toilet," and "thinking the inventor of the Exersaucer deserves some sort of award."
These updates combine with other "news," as Facebook calls it, in a continuous feed of brief snippets listing people my friends were becoming friends with, comments on photos, books and more, oh yes, much more.
I learned two of my friends, at opposite ends of the country, became fans of Captain C.B. Sullenberger, the U.S. Airways pilot who guided his plunging plane into the Hudson River. A Facebook fan page, filled with compliments, was created for Sullenberger briefly after the emergency landing.
One of Facebook's big pluses is its privacy feature. Users are able to screen who sees their information, from making it available to anyone, down to only you. Still, once a photo is on online it can go anywhere, as dozens of Minnesota high-schoolers found out this month when they posted party photos on Facebook and their school followed up with suspensions.
No matter how private it may seem, Facebook is a public place. I joined 1,245,235 other Facebook users in watching the inauguration of President Obama via a collaboration between the site and CNN.com. As history happened, I read status updates from people around the world commenting on the proceedings as they happened. Even though I was sitting alone at my computer, I felt like I was a part of it, more so than if I'd just seen it on TV.
Every time I open Facebook and see a new friend request, it's like opening a present. But it's more that keeps bringing me back. Trying to put my finger on it, I decided to ask my Facebook friends. I sent out an update.
"Jennifer is writing about Facebook and wondering why it is sooo addictive?"
People felt strongly. One of my friends said Facebook had helped alleviate the social isolation of being a stay-at-home mom. Another explained she liked the quick social interaction, which was, occasionally, meaningful. People liked the quick "sound byte" interactions. But there was also guilt, a feeling of wasting time, of being a "voyeur." One friend wrote of feeling "facestalkerish," about the urge to know what her friends were doing.
I can relate to all these feelings, but in the end I can say Facebook has brought me closer to my friends and the world.
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Bauer may be contacted at jkbauer@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2263.
