Dear B.T.S.B Readers,

Are You on Facebook?

I find it amazing how virtually overnight it seems that the commonly used phrase “can I grab your email address” has been replaced by, “are you on Facebook?” I must confess that I received at least a dozen invitations before I finally bothered to register for Facebook myself. What can I say? I’m a traditionalist; I love the simplicity of the humble email. Hell, I’m so traditional that I still have to fight the compulsion to begin my emails with the words “Dear so and so…” and end them with “Yours Sincerely…” And in my defence, it wasn’t as though I hadn’t received similar invitations before – ‘W.A.Y.N’ (Where Are You Now?), Ringo, Friendster – all had come offering the new and exciting possibility of doing pretty much what I was already managing to do very successfully with my Hotmail account. On the face of it, Facebook seemed no different.

But as with all the others, eventually sheer weight of numbers meant that it was easier to just sign up for the damn thing than try to explain to my friends already on Facebook why I still hadn’t found the time to register. I recall that my first impressions were somewhat less than positive. My new homepage seemed rather bland and uninspiring. ‘The Wall’ didn’t appear to offer me anything that I couldn’t already get from an email. But worst of all, Facebook’s main ‘hook’ appeared to be the ability to add a truly baffling array of largely childish applications that I was sure would drive me insane in the blink of an eye. And for someone who struggles with technology (’technology’ here referring to a semantic field comprising basically anything requiring electricity or batteries), it was all just too much.

In hindsight, it’s extraordinary just how soon after this it was that Facebook became my obsession, and it is unquestionably my friends who are to blame. You can certainly plan to just ignore Facebook; in fact you can have all the best intentions in the world. But if someone writes on your Wall, what are you to do but write back? If someone waves at you, how can you not wave back? And if someone throws a sheep at you, you better believe that you’re gonna hurl one right back at them. Then before you know it, you can complete your Master’s thesis in the time it takes you to scroll to the bottom of your Wall, and 632 people have nominated you most likely to be eaten by a bear.

The wonders of Facebook are many and varied. A quick look (well okay, perhaps ‘quick’ isn’t exactly the word I’m looking for, but a look nonetheless…) at my page shows that in recent months I’ve been hugged, waved at and tickled, that I’m addicted to Buffy, that I have joined the group ‘Vote to oust Howard’, (Australia’s current Prime Minister; he’s GOT to go…) that when I was little I used to run around naked with a towel tied around my neck pretending to be Batman, (hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it…) that my entourage rolls 58 deep, and that I’ve been seduced by a panda. So clearly there is no-one alive who can claim that the world is not a better place for this valuable information having been made public. (I also have video of the single greatest accomplishment in human history attached to my ‘FunWall’; the Muppets singing ‘MANAMANA!’ If you’re having a bad day, or feeling stressed or depressed, go to my page and play it. I GUARANTEE it will make you smile, it’s just gold, pure gold.)

Yet despite its many qualities, Facebook is certainly not without its flaws. Some of the available applications have undoubtedly been created by people under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or a dangerous combination of both. If you are already on Facebook, one such application that you will undoubtedly encounter sooner or later will invite you to join the Pirates as they do battle with their arch – enemies, the Ninjas. (?!) The application ‘Fortune Cookie’ occasionally provides fortunes of remarkable insight. Unfortunately however it also provides an equal number that include such pearls of wisdom as ‘Call your Mom’ and ‘We all have white teeth.’ The application ‘Interview’ appears harmless enough, but proves in fact to be practically never-ending, and actually takes perverse pleasure in inflicting torment upon those who are either brave or stupid enough to undertake it, by asking such questions as ‘Is this boring?’, ‘Are you fed up of all these questions?’, and ‘What would happen if you were interviewed and it never ended?’ (I cannot stress this highly enough; IT DOES NOT END!!! So don’t try to complete it because you can’t; just click on ‘Add to your profile’ once you become sick of it. Trust me on this…)

Facebook brings your friends together

You will shake your fist in furious futility at that frustrating little verb ‘is’ that follows your name in your status line, and whose presence cuts off an entire world of past tense and genitive possibilities. And you will feel compelled to engage in pointless, immature competitions with your friends to see who in fact has the most friends on Facebook. (Despite almost three months of determined effort, my younger brother Sean’s total number of friends has consistently remained just tantalisingly out of my reach.)

But of course Facebook’s greatest flaw is that it is only slightly less addictive than heroin, although unlike heroin, it does have the advantage of being able to assume that you will at no time in the near future come home to discover a balaclava clad man with your TV tucked under his arm in the process of securing his next Facebook fix. Though of course one can never be too sure about these things. It is this addictive quality that is making otherwise intelligent, rational people behave in the most extraordinary ways. For example, two random people (for the sake of our story, let’s just call them…oh, Ulla Helander and Jaakko Soudunsaari) may feel compelled to play the Facebook application ‘Traveler I.Q Challenge’, even though to succeed in this game one must pinpoint the location of cities from within the Earth’s roughly 57.500,000 square miles of land surface, with a margin of error that is roughly equivalent to the size of a single copy of Ilta – Sanomat.

Given its many problems, some may feel justified in saying that Facebook provides further evidence of the deteriorating state of modern human relationships. That ‘The Wall’ encourages brief communicative exchanges with no real substance. (Even I must admit that I often find the 1.000 character post limit frustrating.) That the almost countless games and applications are nothing more than gimmicks that waste innumerable hours that could be better spent elsewhere. To those people I would say, “Oh do shut up, nobody gives a damn what you think.” Er, hmmm…

However, if I was in a slightly better mood, I might also mention that it was my birthday last week, and that whilst I sat in Sali 1 at Metsätalo, waiting for British and Irish Literature to begin and struggling to stay awake, I was greeted by the grinning face of Satu Lassila wishing me a Happy Birthday. I might then say that later that day whilst I waited in the lunch queue in the University’s Main Building, Jonas Simola also wished me a Happy Birthday as he passed me on his way to Linguistics. In fact I could tell those people that I received calls, messages and emails from Tiina Latvala, Patrik Renholm, Mara Suikanen and many others here in Helsinki whom I have only just met in the past few weeks, as well as many more from here in Finland and around the world, and that as a result, despite having felt a little lonely and isolated so far from home when I had woken up that morning, I actually ended up having a terrific day.

Lastly, I might add that despite the fact that it’s only a website, that it undoubtedly encourages childish behaviour, and often eats up absolutely frightening amounts of the time of those who use it, it was Facebook that made all of this possible. Amongst many other things, Facebook has simply become another way for truly wonderful people to be…well, truly wonderful. And if the price to pay for this is that a bunch of nerds get to indulge their fantasies of living on the high seas as pirates, fighting bravely against a seemingly unstoppable band of marauding ninjas, then more power to them I say. But for now, so long; maybe I’ll see you on Facebook one day…

Yours Sincerely,

Kristian Banfield.

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