Only 56% addicted to Facebook..

I am hooked on Facebook. Or rather I am hooked on current events, distractions, listening to diverse music and most importantly .. minding people business. The survey here says 56% but does not say whether that is normal or abnormal.

This Facebook experience has been fascinating. I signed up as an idle experiment. And then school friends 'added me'. I found some University friends.. some of them remembered me, some did not. But it was all good, they still added me - and I do not know even as we like each other's status and pictures and so on, whether they remember me.

Facebook intellectual posturing
I am lucky that many of my Facebook frenz are smart and engaged in the world.. I get all kinds of wonderful news links, pieces of writing, poetry, videos, links to discussions which I would not get otherwise.

My music experience has widened considerably.. Sufi, Rai, Bollywood which I would never have bothered with and I am one of the billion that viewed Gangnam style way back in the beginning.   My reading has been extensive too. And I like reposting some of the links and it makes me look smart.. and then I post other nonsense and people giggle, and as a friend (who is also a Facebook fren) said last night, she wondered whether this was the true me.

What True Me?

Facebook creeping..
But.. is the mind of people business .. it is a slow kind of thing which creeps up. When did I start?  I get tagged in frenz pictures and then all of a sudden I see people I did not know frenz are frenz with commenting and then..  CREEP..  you click on the link.. and then you realise.. oh shoots, how come so and so know so and so and shoots, I have to now be careful what I say to them.. not on public but in private.    And then that blasted ticker in the right hand side.. I see comments which people make on things from people who are not my frenz or friends and I go checking and then I wonder about hypocrisy.. in real life so and so talk so and so name with me, and then on Facebook dey are frenz and liking each other status and comments and so on.. shoots!

I don't creep the International celebrities as much as I creep the local celebrities and opinion makers. Thanks to their open public settings, I am either in admiration of some of the public comments (until I realise that they are quoting other people), or absolutely horrified.


Facebook love
And then there is Facebook love.. in the 18th century I would have been able to move on from some of the painful romances... but my damned Facebook.. I am able to try to creep those who no longer speak to me, or who speak to me to remind me of why they despise or.. also.. to check in on those who I love who now moved on but we are now frenz in the nice sense of the word.  Facebook love for me.. one of the loved ones.. we nice friends on facebook, then get in a quarrel, then I get blocked off.. like completely blocked off for a year, and then we have a conversation and I have to provide the guidance of how to unblock me.. and then friends for another year, and then I click the unfriend button after a period of deteoriation (though not blocking).. and then now we both have open profiles so I could creep at will when I want to know what going on even as I keep hitting the browser 'x' button like I get burnt

And then the other loved ones whose feeds I have filtered out so that I could move on but who I dont want to unfren.. we need more love in the Universe..

I am good though, I have not creeped any of the loved ones for about five weeks now..one did request that I view a video, but that's nice

Facebook etiquette
I do not believe in privacy on Facebook.. and so apparently do many people who post all their ups, downs and in betweens that when I seem them on the road I am a bit shocked to ask ... and never mind the half naked photos (I have two half naked photos up) but it is the baring of the soul.. and oh mi gosh.. the F word.. I do not like the F word on my wall so I remove those posts with the F word.

I have frenzed a lot of people, many of them I do not know or have never met. The problem is not with the strangers. Is how to handle the frenz requests from people who in real life I avoid or who I pass on the street or who I would never have to encounter again.

So I apply a complex algorithm of .. come on, Vidya, be nice.. Bhagvad Gita says to treat everybody alike, or come on Vidya, forgiveness is good, or come on Vidya.. is just Facebook.. what the hell, you would never have to see them in real life anyways..  .. but it is never easy to apply this algorithm.. different results often result after different applications and how much chocolate I have eaten.  I will compose a reason why I have rejected a frenz request and I might let them know.


I have only unfrenzed four people in my life. However, plenty more have unfrenzed me much to my dismay. A few have blocked messages so I can't even ask why.

Facebook politics
It ugly bad, politics on facebook.  Like most of Guyana, I have frenz from all the political parties. Some of them terrify me in their intensity.  I am frenz with one Minister.. all good, we had nice engagement on Facebook and off of Facebook as a result. Another Minister, in real life I would never have been able to point out what I saw as her hypocrisy, I then write nice comment expressing my view about her hypocrisy.. it aint change a ting though. Another Minister whose children I was accused  by the PPP of wanting to molest and so on, sent a fren request. I politely said that with all the fake profiles going round, and the accusation, I will decline. I never hear back from the Minister. Another Minister in a thread made a comment that she would want to 'dislike a comment I made'.
 

Facebook supervision
Most of my employers/contractors are my facebook frenz. So this has resulted in my being very careful of how I post and like and so on, especially when deadlines are pending. And I will not refuse a request from any potential client or employer..

Nuff said.