I pose this question philosophically. Social networking sites have always been peripheral to my internet usage since 1. They never seem to change very much and 2. They never seem to do anything. I was warned early on in college that they are extremely addictive so I have never joined or really looked at any of the sites, while maintaining a layman’s knowledge of the idea that there are groups you can join, and a lot of people use them to compare their lives with classmates, set up parties, or meet people to have sex with. But today as I was surfing the net at 6am a girl came into the lab and logged into a nearby computer. She spent two hours clicking through Facebook profiles, and all of a sudden started crying. Fascinated by this after she awkwardly fled I decided to actually find out what Facebook actually was, and there is practically nothing written about it online past a few "superpoke tribute videos" on Youtube and a vague Wikipedia article going on about writing on people's walls and a few apps available.

I did find one article though discussing who actually made Facebook, and this I find a little weird. Theil is a figure I am familiar with, he is a patron member of several organizations I belong to promoting life extension technologies, A.I., and the responsible use of genetic modification- but according to the author he is also part of the neoconservative opposition to MoveOn.org, a hyper-libertarian preacher of conservative values, the free market and limited government and on top of that an anti-multiculturalist fanatic who started the Stanford Review (an extremely conservative publication) and protégéd himself under the philosopher René Girard.

René Girard is a dude who I have read a lot of- mostly because I am interested in the subject of mind control. I had no idea that he ever taught at Stanford or was attending fancy conservative parties. His theory (which has partially been backed up quite a bit already by different psychological experiments on relative wealth disparity and psycho-economics) suggests that people like to do what everyone else is doing. A LOT. If you can find the leaders of a social group and influence their decisions the whole of their network will cascade, as they do naturally with fashion developments, mood, political attitudes, weight gain, number of children, etc.

FACEBOOK is perfect for this. I always cynically assumed that advertisers were cashing in unaware of the benefit of what they were doing, but if Theil helped Zuckerberg, with a knowledge of mimetic desire from the beginning to create this system, then what it essentially is meant to be is a big mind control device!

The columnist doesn't really know what he is talking about with the quantity gripe. Ostesibly for maximum benefit the individual will want to present oneself as being connected with the most attractive, intelligent, successful and interesting people, with the addition then of others the individual perceives to be of the most potential help to oneself in getting ahead in life. This in turn lends the individual more influence in presenting oneself as part of the "hip, happening crowd" feeding one's positive delusions that one is part of what clinical psychiatrists call The Pepsi Generation (the manufactured group of happy people having fun together in all soda commercials that others then compare themselves to) which can take a lot of forms and look different for different people.

Naturally the CIA has an interest because they get to watch what the social supernodes are doing (the very well connected people others look to for behavioral cues) and select individuals to start revolutions or to assassinate or silence (or invest in). When In-Q-Tel started in relation to Sept. 11th is not really important.

Mind you without ANY outside influence these supernodes helped get Obama elected by making him really popular. The article mentions that it HAS helped people get laid, and others to become more popular by capitalizing on their existing social connections- so it is a tool with it's own upsides and downsides like any other. By playing Machiavelli's game and creating an optimized virtual representation of yourself you can really help yourself get ahead- or conversely screw with your own mind if you begin comparing yourself to those who always seem to be waterskiing and hugging attractive members of the opposite sex while wearing swimwear in their galleries, as I believe the crying girl probably might have.

i got rid of myspace and use facebook now. i don't actually use it as "social networking." i use it to keep in touch with the people i'm already friends with. if i didn't like you in high school or whenever i knew you, chances are i probably won't suddenly befriend you just because you found my facebook profile. and just to make sure that didn't happen, i chose the option to make my profile "unsearchable." simply meaning if someone were to do a profile search under the name "courtney slater" my profile wouldn't show up. i find facebook interesting in that i get to see what other people are doing/have been doing/are going to do and such, but oustide of checking the regular peoples' profiles, i don't use it much. not like i used to at least.

The tall guy sez:

I was warned early on in college that they are extremely addictive so I have never joined or really looked at any of the sites, while maintaining a layman’s knowledge of the idea that there are groups you can join, and a lot of people use them to compare their lives with classmates, set up parties, or meet people to have sex with.

You could have stopped there... this is a fairly accurate description of them.

tough?

I've actively sought out my current friends, and have had other people from high school add me and family...but for the most part I use it to keep track of current friends.

I also use it for those that keep track of what I'm doing...so most of my internets life feeds into there.

Does it give FB a huge insight into my life...sure...but since I don't click on their ads, I fail to see how that matters.

Myspace is obnoxious to look at, while I have an account, I don't remember the last time I logged on.

I don't know, say a friend of yours mentions you to someone in conversation about ISU, puppies, diabetic education, etc. and that person thinks "hmmmmm I must get in touch with this Courtney Slater person", but later when they look for you on FB you are unlisted! Now they have to rely on Yahoo! Answers and consequently their whole life is ruined by the bad advice they recieve.

A dying millionaire writhes on his deathbed... "Jeeves! Find me someone to leave all of my money to on Facebook!

An old professor rereads one of your essays and realizes that you've redefined her field in a way she didn't see before...

An ancient codex is unearthed and it's hieroglyphs are deciphered to read out a single name...

Hunky Mcstudmuffins always hated high school, but thoughts of one girl (who he was always too shy to talk to) got him through the day... [this actually happened to a friend of mine with the genders reversed and now they are married]

The people who you think are your biological parents actually kidnapped you from a family of Russian aristocrats who search for you every day and cry themselves to sleep each night...

etc. etc.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I think I know what happened...

But as the article mentions, that usually doesn't come with notifications saying "The guy of your dreams and three of the people you thought of as your best friends have all dumped you for a hamburger coupon, while simultaneously all staying friends with one another". Deletions can be emotionally significant if you really care about the person deleting you or if you have tied the seemingly insignificant relationship to how you see yourself. Suddenly you don't have any black friends, or younger/older friends, or friends not from your hometown- and one is forced in these moments to re-examine oneself in a way many may find most disconcerting.

Or maybe you're right and this girl just saw a picture of her boyfriend making out with three chicks at a house party- IDK.

It's too bad that it's over- you could pre-arrange to dump all of your friends and then re-friend them again immediately for weeks of free food!


Well... "food"

Evil!!!! Facebook and the Penguins. Well they may be encouraging group think and subverting individuality for the benefit of the corporation, but the "20 Best Books Ever" thing sounds pretty cool. I often wonder what people around me like to read.

Five signs that you may be addicted to Facebook

I think that they overdramatize a bit.

while this article is about technological innovation I think the same could be said of socio-cultural progress or the number of "keyboard cat"s created even...

is that a confession?

Mountain Dew Bribes Twitterers

and if it worked once...

Farmville?
It's my personal philosophy that there is no such thing as a bad video game, but what is going on? A farmsim has become the most popular application in the history of Facebook!

Snap-happy Vienna orangutan opens Facebook gallery

It's metaphorically delicious!