Friend-face

Has anyone seen the IT Crowd, season 3, episode 5 's introduction? It's called Friendface - a hilarious take on the internet social networking phenonmenon that seems to be enveloping us all currently.

This post is for the anti-facebooker in me. I've received yet another invitation to be so and so's friend on facebook, bebo, hi-5, friendster... you name it, and even a dutch one whose name I can't remember. No matter how many times you click on the "do not send me invitations from xyzwebsite again"

What's with the focus on the quantity of friends rather than the quality of friends? Everything's becoming easier and faster today to prioritize the convenience of keeping in touch. Isn't that just a euphemism for lazier and more shallow relationships? More facts photos and tweets about the minute details of every day life does NOT equal deeper relationship or knowing someone better.

Don't get me wrong, online networking sites are a great tool as they do help people keep in touch and I salute those who use it wisely with the best of intentions. Though somehow for me, when I don't make the effort, it doesn't feel as hard-won or as precious. The value of something is defined by how much effort (not necessarily money) was spent.

Studies have been done (somewhere sometime I'm sure) that home cooking is enjoyed more than takeaways (generally), growing things in your garden makes you appreciate the good old vege and fruit, physical training, despite the sweat and grunt and pain, is more pleasurable (and effective) than taking a diet pill. Hence the following equation for my technically minded friends.

[if IE^=V^, then P>IE] where V is Value, IE is Input Effort, P is Pleasure

For those of you who are disappointed that I haven't decided to put my life on the web, just think of all the things we could talk about the next time we meet!

In the meanwhilst, of course there's still email, MSN, Gtalk, ICQ, Yahoo!, Adium (for the Mac users) Skype, the telephone, mobile (SMS, MMS), and the humble pen and paper.

xx Sandy