I'm old.

This is what it must have felt like for my father when I told him that Duran Duran was like an 80's version of the Beatles. He must have spontaneously sprouted grey hair right then and there.

I'm on Facebook, and I don't know what the heck I'm doing there. A friend of mine asked me to be her Facebook friend, and how could I tell her no? I hadn't realized that we weren't friends already. Now, I have validation that we are buds. But I haven't embraced it yet. Somebody else asked me to be their friend and alas, after a couple of tries accepting his invitation, I was frustrated enough that I went back to programming. So now I feel bad, because he doesn't know that he's my friend. I've dissed him by not being able to figure out how to accept his invitation.

Oh, the humanity. Or lack thereof.

Then I read a Newsweek article on Facebook-ing Philanthropy. Okay, now some established dead-tree media is talking about the possibilities for philanthropic causes to leverage social networks. I have to figure this out now, before somebody realizes that I'm old. My read is that although no money is coming in, awareness is being raised. Now organizations need to figure out how to capitalize on those eyeballs in a quantifiable way.

The Daily Bruin also ran a recent article on Facebook and Philanthropy, which included the following quote:


Great. The real world is messed up but what is so great about this online world is that it is just like the real thing. Only with virtual kegs of beer. (And yes,  I rewrote the  previous sentence to be more grammatically correct. I can feel the grey hairs sprouting with each passing moment.)

I was just about to start following the breadcrumb trail back out of Facebook and into the real virtual world when I read this:


Oddly enough, this made me feel better and I decided to take a bit of a look around, see what I could find in this den of virtual iniquity. In order to be a responsible Facebook Citizen, I found the Causes application and added it to my profile. Then I went and searched for causes to support. Now, when my handful of friends come and visit my profile, they can see that I support the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, and one of 11 different options for Kiva. I picked the one with the most members and the most money donated.

For some reason, I skipped joining Sam's Stop the Lies of Global Warming cause. He seems to have everything he needs already, other than a dictionary and a copy of The Elements of Style, perhaps. And yes, how old am I? I just edited out a frontal lobe joke, because it is unseemly to me to bash a high school kid for being young and ill-informed. *sigh* I swear, I'm going to go straight from Facebook to a retirement home. Besides, Sam's obviously figured out how to add friends, and I'm still trying to figure out how to log in properly so that I can add all my friends to the same profile.

Also not making my causes cut was a Stop Vegetarians cause. I didn't realize that I was abnormal and part of the problem. I guess if I really cared about making the world a better place, I'd be choking down a hamburger for lunch. Instead, I have my mind set on a nice green salad with sprouts.

So yes, Facebook did originate as a social network for college students, and in many ways has stayed true to its roots. It is as much about sex, drugs and music as one would expect, with some social causes on the side. Just like Berkeley in the 60's. Only instead of waking up and wondering where you are, you wake up and wonder if you would have more friends if you had more bandwidth.