Note: this is an update to my previous post explaining why I left Facebook.

Would most of the people on your Facebook friend list really go out of their way to come help decorate your birthday party?  Probably not.

More than likely, they will prolly proffer elaborate excuses as to why they can’t: their cat has the flu, their back is out, they drank too much last night, they have work in the morning.

Granted, but perhaps they are on your friend list to share ideas, to discuss ways to transform your negative feelings and thoughts into productive happy ones? Again, probably not.

Which then leads me to wonder – is Facebook the ultimate pr0n for exhibitionists – because essentially, you are giving people permission to peek into your personal life, relationships, associations, news clips, or read your microblog.

Facebook preys on your need to be important – to be relevant. To be desired. To not be alone. To “figure.”  It preys on your Status Anxiety.

One might argue that it’s a good way to keep in touch with people you haven’t seen in a long time. Isn’t there a reason you haven’t maintained contact with those people from long ago?

One might argue that it’s a good way to manage your contacts – business and otherwise.  Nothing more.

Consider using LinkedIn for that. Or your Blackberry. Or a daytimer.  Or your memory.

If you argue that it’s the new phone, a way to communicate with family who you can’t see as often as you’d like – phone’s didn’t track what you purchased today, what age group you were talking to ten minutes ago and whether or not you like broccoli.  And no Nielsen polls aren’t the same thing.

One might argue that I am a Luddite, Amish, purist, fundamentalist.  I prefer, as grass-farmer Joel Salatin would like to call it – “post-Big Organic.”

MySpace has become the 80′s roadside billboard: Blast the message and hope to grab some of the collateral damage.  Facebook, on the other hand is an insidious, micro-targeted “resource;” every personal detail, choice, preference you submit leaves you open to highly-focused targeting.  It’s quite brilliant and something that any small or large company would be naive to overlook as a tool for hawking their wares. 

But what does it do for you?  Does it enlighten you?  Does it advise you?  Does it challenge you?  One might consider that exposure to these many personalities and their interests would, but in fact I find the results utterly homogenizing.  Recall that you are being targetted and thus your choices thus far are merely being reinforced as they are pandered to.

If it’s 140 character Haiku you are into, consider Twitter.  No – I don’t have it out for Facebook, but let’s call it like it is – an obsessive compulsion to have people whom you keep at arms’ length know about your neuroses.  Come back to life.  There is a lot of room and it’s yours to discover.

Tags: billboard, birthday party, collateral damage, daytimer, exhibitionists, facebook, haiku, life relationships, linkedin, MySpace, negative feelings, neurosis, niche audience, obsessive compulsion, peek, personal life, pr0n, preys, share ideas, status anxiety