Some expatriates in Asia, an office manager in Alabama and a handful of middle-aged guys in the midwest don't use Facebook.
They have indignant social superiority complexes and would like us to believe their "real life" friendships are all the richer because of their Social Networking Abstinence (henceforth: "Snabstinence").
Most of them claim that the time-leeching vortex of Facebook stole them away from more authentic pursuits. Presumably things like watching Project Runway and finding screamin deals on overstock.com and catching the big game at their local Applebee's . You know, the one with the cute waitress that gives the midwestern guys the happy hour prices on their Budweiser Select even though they're 12 minutes too late.
Rebuttal to the "I needed to get back to real life" argument: these guys weren't actively declining face-to-face invitations in favor of e-lurking. Time wasted on Facebook is time we'd waste brainlessly otherwise. If I weren't clicking through inane status updates during Lost commercial breaks, I'd be checking Gilt Groupe sample sales for discount Rock & Republics or reading TelevisionWithoutPity recaps anyway. You can be Snabstinent, but you'll still waste time online (er, unless you're one of those suckers that downloaded THIS software alternative to "unplugging your router.") Convince me that at 11:30 on a Tuesday night you'd actually be fraternizing with a real person instead of clicking through a friend-of-a-friend's birthday party pics and I'll concede.
A few quoted in the article mentioned that they didn't like being e-hounded by strangers. "I liked that I could reconnect with friends from 30 years ago, but that soon turned into all sorts of people contacting me who I really didn't want to hear from," said one middle-aged guy from Stockton who never learned how to Hide updates or Ignore friend requests or otherwise shield himself from those privacy-averse types that update every headache they've endured, every carryout pizza they've eaten and every "What type of tree are you?" quiz they've taken.
Rebuttal to the assult argument: make the technology work for you. Take back the webernet. "Don't be a victim!" We do have some measure of control over our social network. On whom we spy or comment, with whom we email or flirt. Farmville can only stalk you if you permit it to stalk you. The "girl you barely know from high school that 'likes' each of your status updates?" We're not a slave to her approval. Block her. Oooh, you mean risk offending someone we hardly know by taking assertive control of our own online life?
Well....yeah.
The flipside: you might not make it to 350, 750 or 1201 "friends" as quickly (and obviously our sense of self worth is directly related to the number of fake friends we have online...admit it), but you'll be spared the "OMG, LOL!" refrain when you become a "Fan of Not Being Hung Over." And if you think it's strange that your mother befriends your ex-girlfriend (as one Cincinnati guy did)....well, um...he's on his own there...I don't have any advice for that. Odds are they'd have stayed in touch with or without social networking websites, but it is sort of funny that you might have to read their exchanges. Although my mom is friends with at least one of my ex-gentlemen and it hasn't turned out to be as strange as it sounds. It wouldn't have driven me to Snabstinence as it drove Mr Cincinnati....If I were him I'd have gotten creative and befriended one of the ex-girlfriend's friends and sent her hosts of flirty wall posts. Would be so much more satisfying than taking the high road and ignoring the site altogether. Wimp. Make the technology work for you.
A middle-aged guy from Nashville went Snabstinent after he met up with a facebook Lady Friend in person and was introduced to her friends as "Jim from Facebook." He would have preferred to be "Jim from Nashville."
Rebuttal: what's the difference?
More people know where Facebook lives than where Nashville lives. And Jim? You're looking that gift horse in the mouth. Down the throat. Don't be a Snypocrite (Social Networking Hypocrite - get it?!?!?!? So great. That doesn't get old). This guy's decided the Facebook's fine for landing that date, but only if it's kept secret?
Hmmm...if I had a buck for the number of gentlemen from the past that have surfaced on Facebook for the express purpose of asking me out I'd have, um, four dollars and fifty cents (you figure that fifty cents out yourself). And I didn't have to pay Match or eHarmony or eChemistry or eCubicleRats (heh, heh) a dime. And I'd have no problem telling people, "Got to know each other on Facebook."
Being ashamed of "meeting" someone online: very 2002.
The only hurdle: when you meet e-squeeze's friends in person for the first time, you sort of have to stifle the urge to say, "Hey, how's your super-cute wife doing????" as though you were entitled to have any idea who he - or his wife - were in the first place. And asking how his brother's doing after that back surgery: probably best to let them bring it up before you admit you know his brother's profile isn't private and that it looks like he had fun on New Year's Eve.
So, Nashville Jim, come up with a cute quip for when she introduces you that way again and immdiately impress the new friends. Own it.
Snabstinence: leave it to my dad. Because without the Facebook...err...I'd probably have finished writing my novel by now. Or I'd have read 15 instead of 12 books last month. See -- I still pursue REAL things like literature....I just break between chapters to refresh the profile instead of dashing to the kitchen for ice cream.
I'm sure someone can make a perfectly cogent argument against being so steeped in "up-to-the-second" access to the mundane activities of people we hardly know....I'll just de-friend that person. Er, no, they've probably already de-friended me.
And I do have some decently impressive ideas about the ways that our education system needs to catch up with the iGeneration (the kids trailing behind us Generation Y Millenials as we approach 30) and their expectation of instant, constant connectivity. Another day.
Also another day: how much brain power did we waste trying to remember "what movie that guy was in with so-and-so" before we could look 'em up on IMDB with the blackberry and reclaim that peace of mind?
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