Thursday, May 3, 2012

Blog # 6 "Facebook in a Crowd" by Hal Niedzviecki

I just finished reading "Facebook in a Crowd" by Hal Niedzviecki, found myself intrigued by his story. It's amazing how he starts off by talking about his 700 online "friends" and how proud he feels to have these friends.  I was very well engrossed in this story, it made me think of my own daughter. She has just as many friends on her Facebook page and I wonder and ask her who all these people? She always says friends of friends so do you actually know all these people, she laughs and says no! So, why do you need to have them all as your friend? She replies and says mom, you wouldn't understand but I will explain it to you.  To be cool now days you don't have to just have friends in school, it also depends on how you do on your social network as well. She had just lost me right there. She say's mom you know it’s all about popularity, so what if I don't know all of them, I still look cool. Has time really changed so much that we really have to depend on what the social network says is cool or not? As reading on with his story, I started to feel sorry for him because here was a man looking to try and meet some of his new friends, old friends and only one person had the decency to show. Granted, I was evinced that the one lady showed up, but still deeply sadden for him for the crush of no other friends had come.  The truth of the story is you may seem on paper or on social networking to be popular but when you are alone, you may ask yourself, where everyone is? I personally love what Niedzviecki says as his last sentence. “The beer arrived, a British import: Young’s Double Chocolate Stout. I raised my glass in a solitary toast and promised myself I’d spend less time online. Then I took a gulp: the beer was delicious but bittersweet. Seven hundred friends, and I was drinking alone”.


No comments:

Post a Comment