> When I am on FB too much, I sometimes get the feeling I am looking through a window at social scenes in which I am conspicuously absent. Absolutely. You get

> When I am on FB too much, I sometimes get the feeling I am looking through a window at social scenes in which I am conspicuously absent. Absolutely. You get the distinct feeling that you are watching other people enjoying life instead of actually having fun in your own life. In the times I am on FB too much, I know, at some level, that I'm looking to connect more meaningfully with people. But I'm confusing knowing about someone with having a relationship with that person. It's like pornography for the shy. And, just like pornography, it also feels so...empty. There's a certain social code that prohibits you from simply striking up conversation randomly with "friends" on a status update. I mean, you can, but it is risky. Facebook is vanity, pure and simple. It is your personal PR machine. Ideas are not valued as they are, they're always filtered by what your "friends" think of you. More anonymous sites, such as HN, fare better in this regard. The demographics of the users also have a huge effect. FB will be abuzz with something like football teams winning/losing, but few will put up anything you wouldn't find on a generic, boring web portal, such as MSN. The "Like" feature only reinforces this lowest common denominator conformity. I regularly question my use of the site. In subsequent stages of life I can easily see myself not having an account at all. I can only hope their walled garden approach fails somehow, because my generation is not smart enough to wake up from the always-connected narcotic that is web 2.0.