Tag it as Facebook values

I'd like to preface this post by saying I now know what so-called old people feel like when they try to get on the "internets." I spent a good half an hour in a barely controlled rage because Blogger.com was playing smoke and mirrors with my account. I guess it's my fault, because I have two Gmail accounts, than another one that I post here with. But still! Stressful situations have been clinically shown to increase the risk of heart failure! I don't need that now...save it for graduate school!

And now for something completely different..

Facebook has done many things for the youth of this nation. For one, it had brought everyone's hilarious hijinks to neat tagged and serchable order. More importantly, Facebook has allowed people to keep tabs on each other, a fact I've utilized a lot being 4,000 miles from home. The best part of the program, by far, is exactly as Mr. Zuckerberg stated; it makes people more kindly toward each other.

Having a profile on Facebook gives your friends an online dossier detailing your life and times, to the minute. The upshot of such permeability is two-fold.

First off, it forces each person with a profile to selectively mold their image. This molding is constrained by two things; the truth, and what cannot be hid from the world. The first is just what it sounds, who you really are. The second is tricky, because depending on the pictures tagged of you, it may be impossible to brand yourself as a conservative, non-alcoholic gentleman (or lady, be it the case). Mixing the truth and covering that which you want to keep private means scrutinizing the details, searching for any small chink in the armor of your personality.

That scrutiny works both ways, as the transparency that most users grant their friends on Facebook means that we are becoming a culture of ever-more socially concious people. The act of engaging ourselves through short-answer updates in the lives of everyone we know makes it much easier to get a kind word to someone in a rough spot, or rejoice with someone during better times.

Facebook's primary function is to help you connect with the people in your life. Hell, it says just that on the login page of the site. Through the micro-blogging, picture tagging, and the newest chat feature, Facebook gives us our daily fill of the lives and times of other people. Participating in the running commentary gives users the inside scoop that may save a conversation from the awkward, post break-up and skip instead to more current fluff.

To be cheeky, there is a downside to all of this, namely the volume of pictures tagged of you with a face that screams, "one too many shots." But, in all seriousness, those pictures could be the only memories you have of the evening in the first place, so treasure what you've got.