It occurred to me the other day that Facebook has become a way of making everyone more immediately accessible (duh), but not just in the conventional "Oh hey it's that guy I went to high school with, I'm going to send him a message." sort of way. In a far more immediate sense, it's made at least a small portion of virtually everyone's existence accessible to whoever wants to access it.
For example, I was with a couple friends the other day, just out enjoying the sun on Granville. One friend mentioned in passing that he was kind of into this girl he'd met somewhere. Now, as recently as a couple years ago, that would have been pretty much the end of the conversation (possibly with the "Is she cute?" question thrown in somewhere.) Instead - since this isn't a couple years ago - we were lurking her Facebook pictures on my iPhone within moments, and concluded that she was a cutie and that he should go for it.
Is this weird? Well yeah, kind of. Is it extremely gratifying to be able to know things about someone - even things as simple as whether they're cute - instantaneously, on demand, wherever we are? You bet!
I for one think this kind of immediacy with others may prove to be beneficial. The more you know about someone, the harder it is to justify wronging them; hopefully, that means all this interconnectivity between strangers and friends-of-friends will result in a more tightly knit society as a whole. Am I pipe dreaming? Probably. But it's a nice thought, isn't it?
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