well, isn't it?

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One of the first dicoveries you might make now that you have "returned to Earth" is that you don't really like -don't feel connected to- your job, your lifestyle, or a lot of the people around you. If this leads to a realization that it is the PLACE you live in that is alienating you from all these (the city, the suburbs) then I have some advice for you.

1. Don't panic, its all gonna be cool. Definitely don't return to the Artificial World until you've come to terms with the real one.

2. Ride the urge to flee, that's your INSTINCTS talking to you. Get yourself a change of scenery for as long as you need to rebalance. Natural places are best, but foreign cities or built places could work as long as they are not too corrupt and are less offensive than where you are now. Old friends or family can help with grounding as well.

3. Go back and make it better. Once you have recovered reality (shouldn't take long), you need to return to where you are now and dedicate as much of your time and effort as you can to making it a more livible place. You are by no means alone, and your fellows need your effort. There's not enough Natural places left for all of you to "get out" -most of you will have to remain.

4. Always keep in mind that this is not "being silly" or "overly dramatic". You have been spending a huge portion of your waking hours in a State of Unreality more boring and mundane than, but just as Unreal as, an extended "hallucinatory trip" or a Schizophrenic break. You were driven to this Unreality by the bizarre unacceptability of our current living arrangements. This is important and the adjustment will be difficult.

Don't Panic,

-matti.

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While I can relate somewhat to the article, I just joined Facebook about a month ago. Maybe it is my age, but I don't spend time honing my profile to give a certain impression. I get on a few times a week, and having lived in Africa for the past 20 years I find it a good way to find old school friends and keep in some sort of 'less-than-perfect' contact with extended family.

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I became a member because I was recieving so many e-mails from friends and family that I couldn't read unless I signed up. One year later and I am still trying to figure out what the hell the function of FaceBook is!

What pupose does it serve other than to leave a useless message that can already be left via traditional e-mail?

"YOU HAVE A MESSAGE: DAN O'BRIEN WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND!

Ummm....Dan O'Brien already is my friend....I think....

The whole enterprise seems such a waste of valuable time.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Crazy White People

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... But I am going to defend some aspects of facebook.

Firstly, I do not use it as an escape to a virtual world, in fact my real world friends are the ONLY people I add as "FB Friends." I am well aware of the potential for ridiculous misrepresentation and false self promotion on the Internet in general and something like FB generally makes it worse but as a way to keep updated on the events of your friends lives it is very effective. I have a lot of friends from different social circles and as I do not share the same city, province, time zone, country, or continent as most of my friends it helps me to feel like I can experience some of what is going on with them and likewise offer the same to them. I can see their art and writing or laugh about some embarrassing pictures taken of them. Truly, it allows me to partially participate in the things that make us friends even though I am thousands of Kilometres away whereas a simple e-mail or phone call lacks that feeling. Used as a communication medium it is really quite great if only because it is so prolific, my friends use many different communication methods: Phone, MSN, QQ, Skype, MySpace, etc but FB is the one we have in common so I use it.
Not everyone on FB is a FB zombie and certainly not everyone on FB is a narcissist; that is a pretty broad brush to be painting with if you ask me. Like most things that site is used by many people in many different ways from a simple message service to its more base applications so, please don't assume everyone has the same problem you encountered while using that program.

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I fall in between the Baby Boomers and the people born in the 80's and 90's. I'm a proud Generation Xer, and I'm going to come down on the side of Facebook. I spend no time agonizing over my own page. I post pictures from trips and of the children's shows I direct, but my time is spent reconnecting with old friends and learning about their lives. We've had reunions of high school drama buddies, I just had a great "instant chat" with my first boyfriend, I get to see pictures of people's kids, their vacations - I think the problem with this author is that she forgot what social networking is supposed to be. Perhaps she's become so accustomed as a writer to putting something out there and waiting for other people to comment on it, that she missed the wonderful opportunity to connect on a personal level. She mentions updating her status and then checking to see if anyone commented. Did she ever comment on anyone else's? The problem is not Facebook, it's narcissism.

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The article brings up an interesting question: Is it all about narcissism? Or is it a bunch of people desperate for real community?

I would say both. But like the article says, it appears to be generational. As far as I can tell, my parents seem to have had a more genuine sense of community without the benefit of cell phones and internet access.

When you have grandparents, kids, that sickly aunt, and uncle Vinny who just got off the boat all living in the same house...cows to milk, chickens to feed...and everybody has to chip in, you don't have time to refine your online profile, add more political rants to your blog, collect cute little quotes, or talk about your mountain biking trip across Europe.

Back then, it seems you had less time to be a narcissist, and less need to be, because daily life kept you more engaged, and you had a place. I don't know that I'd want that now, but it's interesting to discuss...Maybe I'll post a longer version of this theory on my blog, so y'all can check it out...And while you're there, check out my new pics and clever quotes.

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Social networking sites, virtual world sites, texting, and cell phones prevent people from developing even rudimentary social skills. I teach college kids and it is abundantly obvious that they are very uncomfortable and awkward with face-to-face interactions that involve eye contact and speech. They are more comfortable hiding somewhere and pushing buttons.

The technologists get richer and the end-users become codependent social morons.

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...and take a look. Is this really such a big deal?

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I agree that social networks can become addictive, but not everyone has the same potential for addiction, after all.

I don't use facebook, but one of its equivalents. I started more than two years ago, and then I quit only to find that all my friends to whom I had been connected wondered whether something had happened and I had fallen off the face of the earth.

So I went back, but luckily I have never felt this obsessive need to go out there and change my profile every other day to get a response.

I think it's funny that I've always used social networks, such as facebook, to really connect to people. When I moved to a new city, I looked for other people who had moved here - and we started doing things regularly. In real life. Using facebook and others to arrange where and when we meet. And updating our profiles as inside jokes that only we can laugh about.

For me, I think quitting is not the answer. But then again I don't care much about who visits and who doesn't. I'm just there so that my friends always have a way of reaching me.

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It's not Facebook that's the problem, it's how you use it and what your intent is.

It's true, there are a lot of people acting like narcicists on Facebook, and there are scads of applications such as "top friends" and "How hot are you" etc. that cater to this trait, and a lot of viral groups that do as well. "Join and make thousands of friends!" "Add me!" groups really play on narcicism, because a lot of people join them and do what they say, add all the members and admins so their friend lists look bigger which makes them think they really have made hundreds of "friends" and look really popular. Blech. *Rolling eyes*

That's not what Facebook is supposed to be about.

It's meant for keeping in touch and up to date with what's going on with your family and friends, not putting out the most pretty pictures and far-out statuses to get the most attention and notice. The new layout makes it so much easier to keep in touch and actually communicate with your friends and relations on the site, because now the comment areas are right within the news feed. No longer do you have to click on a profile, plow your way down a huge list of pointless and often narcicistic applications and endless pictures just to make a comment on a wall. Just log onto Facebook, see what your friends and family who are on the site are up to, click "Comment" under whatever news story of theirs interests you and, well, make a comment. If you do this enough times, chances are you will eventually get a bit of a dialog going, and that's a lot more than what usually happens with emails these days.

With email, people tend not to send anything unless it's stupid chain letters. With Facebook, you get statuses and other news stories, and for some reason, people seem so much more likely to use FB as a tool for real communication than email or other means in cyber space. It's too bad there are chain letters on Facebook too, avoid super wall and what Slide Inc. calls "fun space" and you won't get those. Thanks to the new layout, you don't have to see that junk cluttering your friends' profiles so much either.

If you'd make enough effort to interact with the friends and family you have on Facebook, you might not get the notice and attention you were craving, you might not even get a ton of comments back, replying to whatever you said about their status or picture or whatever, but you would eventually get some responses, and the more you use FB for interaction, the less you use it for trying to get attention, the more likely you are to get something good out of it in the way of the few conversations generated here and there between you and some friend or family member. The more content you are with that, the better.

There are a lot of narcicists on Facebook, but you don't have to be a narcicist to be a Facebook user.

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I enjoy staying in touch with a few friends on Facebook. But they're really my close friends, i.e. we were friends long before FB. Other people clearly use the site to show off (where they've been, their 300+ "friends," etc.). And I suppose there's nothing wrong with this.

What I don't like about FB are the applications, mainly used by high school students, where kids rate each other on looks, popularity, sexiness, etc. Such ratings can be a new form of bullying, and many young people have been devastated by unfair comments, being excluded as friends, being voted least kissable, and other nonsense.

Imagine high school again, only now your embarrassing moments are caught and forever enshrined on Facebook. The horror ... the horror.

For one, I'm glad FB wasn't around when I was 16.

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It took me three attempts to give up smoking but my second departure from Facebook is final.
I disabled my account a week ago and with each news item about Facebook thrown into my face by Google news I have felt greater relief. Good riddance.
The Facebook experience resembles little more than the life in slums of Mumbai and “Kommunalka” apartments of Soviet Union where a half dozen families could be cramped together in one large apartment and three generations of one family could live in a room. They all knew each other — knew each other by the sound and smell of their farts, their moans, groans, joys, sickness, pleasures and grief. And they all desperately want an escape from that hell. Poverty as a loss of privacy and personal space are propagandist terms that divert attention from the real issue of life in a slum - the real issue is loss of human dignity, self respect and victimisation. People watching, listening and smelling every move of each other’s lives, poking each other as in over crowded buses and trains, peeking through windows at every move, sneering, laughing and sympathizing - all their senses trained on lives of others. This is a ghetto. This life in a slum.
The most enduring dream of people living in slums and Communal apartments is to create a space for themselves. A personal and private space where they can be protected, where they can guard their dignity from constant intrusion, attack and inspection by neighbours, strangers, perverts, police and politicians. And here we are surrendering all we have so we can be poked.
To me Facebook membership is the equivalent of giving up my home, my life and my dignity and moving to a slum - not to do some good - but to poke and be poked, to watch and be watched.
It is the most demeaning existence I can imagine. I would rather start smoking again and die of lung cancer with my carbon black lungs running out of oxygen in my hands.
Facebook is the American online ghetto and the world is rushing to enter. We are all rushing to pull down our walls, strip away our privacy, label ourselves, describe our most intimate details and cram into ghetto networks so someone can observe, profile and detail us by our habits, ethnicities, interests, professions and then our deepest secrets. So we can be sold some clothing made by child labour, some over priced gadgets and porn videos ?
As far as I know no one ever met anyone useful on one of these networks - some random sexual encounters, maybe, but what usefulness these networks have when the dangers lurking in them are stacked sky high? What use they have more than voyeurism? The risks so heavily outweigh any potential usefulness that it is counter intuitive to expose ourselves in such detail on these networks. Yet, that is what millions are doing.
Facebook and Myspace are a complete surrender to a new menace of techno-corporate fascism. Grouping ourselves by ideology, race, geography, interests, beliefs and every aspect of our lives exposes us to wanton exploitation.
And mark my words, it will come. With each click we empower those and their technologies who seek to control our lives and tear away our individuality. The corporations, extreme political groups, perverts, paranoiac governments, political activists, religious fanatics and so many more are trawling these sites, sifting through the chatter and banter and exposed lives of millions. They will drag millions into dark holes of deprivation and we will not have the means to pull ourselves out. The technological barbed wire on these internet concentration camps makes them a one way street unless we can leap out in good time before our DNA has been mapped.

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This article was well thought out and still quite narcissistic. I think Facebook may have brought out this trait to the serfice, but clearly it was not the computer application that was the problem.

What you feed is what grows larger. It is entirely wonderful to use Facebook and other online networks to flavor your world.
Adding spice is the key. The spice is not to be the whole, but a flavoring of the whole.
The "LOOK AT ME" and "PICK ME" attitude admitted by the author surprises and charms me. Perhaps it's simply the rightful immaturity of the young. And why not? How fortunate Carmen Joy King came to this realization and changed her focus.
I submit, if you are having the same "symptoms" as Carmen, by all means quit Facebook and go get some sunshine on your face.
As for me, I'll continue to use this application. I have a life which makes utilizing it's notices and calendars a nice easy shortcut.
If ever this becomes a looking glass obsession, I'll quit!

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I'm a member of Gen X... To me, everything about Web 2.0 has seemed to me to be a ridiculous waste of time. When I look out at my and the next generation, what I notice is the sincere lack of real substance most of us have. I talk to people who bought into this pyramid scam and constantly hear about the stupidities of how many 'friends' they have (in name only) and people they 'know' and at first thought there might have been something to it. Yes, its a way to keep in touch, but so is email. So is IM'ing... for that matter, so is writing letters via snail mail. I think the narcisissm angle has alot of weight to it, but personally, I think garbage social networking sites are really tied to a sense of having something without really having much of anything. When you have a nice looking page, it likely didn't cost you very much in terms of real money. Sure, it might have cost you time, but you used tools other people invented to do it rather than crafting something yourself. People walking around in one of the pre-programmed archetype images deemed 'cool' or whatever usually didn't do much to make their image. In olden times, peoples' lives created their image for them rather than the other way around. These days, you just go to a store that caters to that particular archetype, drop an inflated amount of money on the counter and walk out with a new 'me'. Web 2.0 is the ultimate expression of this.

Another thing is, being genuine can invite hurt feelings or disagreement with the herd. Its easy to take a punch to a bullshit image you created out of thin air- there is no personal investment in it. If someone knew the 'real' you and didn't like it, rather than their critiques hitting the illusion you have created for yourself, it hits YOU, and today's folks don't have the consitution to take it thanks to mommy and daddy's constant coddling. Personally, I think the social networking BS is just another symptom of the sick, disconnected, arrogant, narsissitic, pathetic excuse for society we exist in these days. I'm glad the author decided to join real life- and I hope its the first of a flood of others. Real life can be ugly and nasty beyond belief, but the rewards of it are real- and can't be erased by as little as 4 clicks of a mouse.

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The article appears to be about one person's inability to handle Facebook. That's fine - some people can't handle alcohol, or facebook, or religion, or pot, or video games, or chocolate. In those cases, self-awareness is a useful thing, and quitting is appropriate.

Yet the headline: "Stop Being a Narcissist -- It's Time to Quit Facebook" is not only projecting the author's own faults onto the rest of the world, but demanding that we change to match her "cure." Now that's really narcissistic. And inappropriate.

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Facebook is a took for useful social activism. From political groups which mobilized the move to donate to PP in Palin's name and thus have PP paraphenalia sent to the McCain/Palin address to the Green Patch that buys up rainforest to protect it, there are plenty of progressive reasons to be on Facebook. You can link to articles from Alternet that you find meaningful and stay in touch with people who might be far away.

The article about Facebook is artfully written but entirely misses the false target of Facebook. The real target is the author's ego, which is also untouched and probably even more inflated, post-Facebook and post-published article about how narcissistic Facevook is. Pardon me while I puke.

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Social networking sites encourage narcissism, but we've come through these overhauls of human organization before. Take the cell phone in the advanced countries - its widespread use represents a tremendous change in how people move, make plans, work, play. That's all fine. It is, of course, more efficient, if that concept interests you. For me, the question always remains one of ownership and control.

Maintaining the free online services like Facebook and Gmail is expensive, so what's the business model? Advertisements, of course, and the largest data mining operation in the world. Why the hell do you think Murdoch spent half a billion for MySpace?

Some might say, "What's the problem? They're free services. You don't have to click on ads, you can keep your skeptical leftist attitudes, etc." My question is, what if you can't?

Look at it this way. If you're a mainstream worker in the first world, not having a cell phone is not an option anymore, a mere twenty years after their introduction. The notion of "opting out" of social networking will be laughable in ten years time.

No, it won't be the crude totalitarian parody of a 1984 scenario, but there will be the coercion to adopt the habits of your peers, while your particular "flavor" of consumerism will remain as the beautiful aesthetic space of "freedom". Coke or Pepsi, in other words. Employers will require social networking, just like they require a background check, drug testing, and (many) give you a cell phone or an email address. Ask yourself: what are the consequences of not responding to calls on your work cell or not responding to work email? Termination, most likely.

Of course, capitalism's always been about exploitation, and that's nothing new. What's new is the scale and efficiency. Communications lines, until now, have had some sort of pretense of privacy. Even if the gov't or whoever had the means to listen in on your phone calls, it was considered paranoid to assume this was the case. Your profile on Facebook is different, however. It is assumed that your peer-to-peer communications will be observed. The option for more privacy is there, but that "choice" will be marketed out of existence soon, just like the land line.

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This is inspiring.

I'll go delete my facebook account now. However, I'm not quite ready to delete my myspace account, which I use much more frequently.

One step at a time. After that, I'll work on my eating disorder.

Seriously, thanks. Great piece of writing here. Very insightful and helpful.

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Seriously. I'd rather be in a place with other jackasses just like me. Real humans with social issues and flaws. Real people poking me and jabbing me as they crowd their way to the bar to order another social lubricant to help them cover up their fear or bring out more of that stupid bravado they believe they have. Yep. That's where I'd rather spend my time networking and connecting. With real people, drunk or not. Narcissistic or not. The drinks taste better, the pokes feel better and the people, stink, stanky and stunk, are actually real.

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Here is a highly educational video about Facebook which stopped me from ever joining and has led to many I know leaving Facebook. I am an artist and have special considerations with my work, but the information in the video concerns everyone.

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i put a link to your story on my facebook page.

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Americans believe it is all about them. We are a nation obsessed with self. That is why we can never agree or come together on anything for the common good. It's not always about the physical either. We are narcissists in almost every conceivable way. This attitude gives way to exceptionalism and nativism. Most Americans don't know or care how many Iraqis died in Bush's cooked up war after the government allowed or staged the 9/11 false flag attack on America. Yes they did it. If you saw the evidence and are not insane you cannot truthfully deny that the US government was involved in the attacks. But Americans are too busy to address treason from their government. We have to get a new outfit or a new car or a new house or take a vacation because it's all about us and how to make us appear better to other people. We are a sick diseased nation and it is time for this empire to collapse. I just wish they would pay black people reparations first.

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