Welcome to the World of Facebook

LAST YEAR-

'Gyung-Hyun Je, You have notifications pending'.

   True. 

   I could see it clearly in front of me, with 253 new mails filling up pages after pages. Lines after lines, 'Gyung Hyun Je, You have notifications pending' stood out in clear blue letters on beaming screen. There were occasionally some 'Kylie said something about you. Check them out!' or 'Sofiya Syrovatskaya wants to be friends with you'. Lines after lines. Pages after pages. 'Gyung Hyun Je, there are 14 friends whose Birthdays are in this week!' 'Gyung Hyun Je, 45 people are waiting for your.....'

   Click, click click click click. Delete.

   No matter how quickly I clicked and deleted, new messages crammed into the missing places. 237 more to go. Looking at the all those tangled blue letters, I wondered what Facebook manager had to say so desperately. There had got to be something special among those mails that were stuck on my mailbox everyday. Reading, clicking and deleting, I rolled down the mouse, moving it across the screen idly.

 

   When I had first started Facebook, it was an unknown world in a new continent to pioneer with my fingers and key board. Mysterious words such as 'Pokes' with a small sign of a finger by the right side or the endless 'Wall' where others could put their doodles on fascinated me. As soon as I made my account, there were so many people who wanted to be friends with me. Once I willingly clicked this accept sign, we were official friends. Day by day, I would sit in front of the computer screen smiling contently, counting all friends I had like a child counting his candies. One of the nicest thing about Facebook was that on my Birthday, this kind manager would let my friends know it so that they could say Happy Birthday to me. On that day, I sat down, reading all the posts that started from the top of the screen to the end, clicking merrily 'Likes' for every post.

   I was absolutely overwhelmed by the mightiness of Facebook. Intricate lines of communications I had were unraveled so easily by its wisdom. I enriched my brain everyday, tapping in new information learnt from one of the most ingenious things ever invented. I could sit down from the morning and swim softly through the vast ocean of Facebook until dawn.

However, the day when my love for the Facebook came to a screeching halt had come. Everyday there were some comments on the posts or on my wall. Seeing them, I was obliged to click Likes and put comments on them. It was like getting some other homework to be handled in due date. 'Gyung Hyun Je, Your notification is pending' was the worst possible message I could get from the Facebook manager. When I did not log on for more than a day, it felt as though there was a stone that sat heavily on my mind.

   'Did I poke her back? Did I put some comments on the post he left? Would Laura be disappointed if I just ignore the message she sent?'

I had to make sure that my facebook was kept tidy and not 'pending'. Posts waiting for replies, pokes sent from friends, comments on my wall. It seemed that the communication lines which I had thought had been unraveled were tangled even more. Swimming too further in the ocean of Facebook, I had realised that I had come too far.

 

   Although I somehow managed stay abstinent for a few months, on entering highschool, my facebook life started all over again. It no longer was a choice, but a need. It was as if I was forming a bond with internet net working itself. For some other 'attention seekers', facebook was a place where he could find some 'likes'(that he probably would not get so much in real life) from others, their lost self confidence and potential ego centrism through those 'thought provoking' posts. Even a few used it to 'implicit' attack others in a manner which made everyone who read the post would immediately realise who was on the issue. Facebook really was like a small society(small?) recreated on the web.

   'There would be a very important notification I will be posting on the facebook group. I will give some disadvantages to those who do not check it...'

   'English teacher posted the scores on facebook! Please check!'

    I was almost forced to form a bonding, be a part of the vast net of interaction and communication. It was rooting into my life as something that I could not live without.

   As time passes, people are being added to this big communication web like spiders. Some controlling it, and others being tied up by own nets they have created. Putting their identity on public and internet, it seems as if people are forming muti-identities through these sites. What is worth a while thinking about is:

What is it that we get from those net workings? Some important things fundamental to our lives like big main root of a tree, others like a minor twigs?

   Some people do it almost instinctively without much thoughts. How come has this rather tremendous change and a slightly awkward phenomenon been molten into our lives so naturally?

...

Now, time for Facebooking.