keeping up.

I'm not on Facebook. I have a MySpace account, which I signed up for so that I could look at someone else's pictures. I don't have any quotes or pictures, and my only friend is Tom, who is such a nice guy, he's friends with everyone.

My avoidance of these sites was at first unintentional. It seems like they got really popular while I was in college, but I never saw any need to have one. At some point, I realized that I was in the minority. Most people I know have one or both of these accounts, and they are active. I've seen Josh mess with his MySpace before, and while he occasionally updates the background or something like that, mostly he just reads through his messages and manually filters out the spam. He does receive messages from actual people, but from what I can tell, they are people who know either his phone number, email address, or both.

When I was having dinner with a friend recently, he was playing with his Blackberry and then muttered something about me not being on Facebook. I remarked how I didn't really have a use for it. He responded, "Oh, I just need it to keep up with people."

This remark struck me as completely asinine. Because he doesn't "keep up" with people. It's not that he talks to people through Facebook. He just has a page that he can go to whenever he wonders what such and such is up to. He can then find out where the person is living, their marital status, how many pets they have, and that yes, their favorite color is still red. There's no actual communication going on between them. It's a way to simulate having a relationship with someone without actually doing anything.

I know I sound like a fuddy-duddy. I'm willing to be convinced here, if someone can explain to me how social networks can give me something I don't already have. I understand that they are valuable marketing tools, particularly for musicians. And I will grudgingly admit that if some long-lost friend wants to find you again, it'll be easier if you are on one of these networks. But once you're found, will you actually be friends again, or just someone on a list of friends?