SelfAbsorbed.ME : ‘It’s Your Life, We Just Write it Funnier’

My feelings about Facebook.com have always been mixed. Like many of my peers, I rely on the website for purposes of social research–a fancy phrase for “stalking.”

Time spent on Facebook is an indulgence, a guilty pleasure that, like the occasional cigarette, can quickly spiral into an unhealthy addiction. You start out doing it once in a while, no big deal, because it’s a social thing. And then suddenly you can’t go without an hourly update. Then an hourly update turns into two hours of reading the wall-to-wall communication between your ex boyfriend and the skinny blonde in his econ class.

Such an addiction generates feelings of resentment towards the website, and a good deal of self-loathing. These days, I find myself particularly enraged by Facebook’s latest massive redesign, a new format that makes Facebook stalking impossible to avoid–think smoking without a filter. This new design forces me to reflect upon what the social network has become. Is face time with the Book really worth it anymore?

In a nutshell, the new design turns people’s individual profiles into a combination of a newsfeed and a wall. This stalker sandwich is the first thing you see next to the individual’s profile picture. The newsfeed-wall combo not only updates you on the individual’s activities, but also shows you whom the individual has been communicating with. Full blown stalking extravaganza. The rest of the person’s information: personal favorites, political and religious views, romantic status, tagged pictures, etc., are on other tabs that you can select.

I’ve always had a problem with the newsfeed application, added four years ago. It’s a feed on the homepage that makes announcements about an assortment of personal and group updates. Each person also has his or her personal newsfeed that tracks all activity within the website. The in-your-face, to-the-minute updates of individuals’ activities propelled Facebook stalking to a whole new level. While I admit that Facebook is an investigative tool, the newsfeed made it too easy.

The day that the newsfeed appeared, I quit Facebook cold turkey. It disgusted me. There were moments of yearning, but I also felt reborn and unburdened. However, three months later, a friend snapped a photo of me that was total Facebook profile pic material. Stumbling across a good facebook picture is tantamount to tripping over a dinosaur bone or finding a pearl inside your oyster at dinner. I caved and rejoined.

Meanwhile, Facebook just keeps generating applications and redesigns, most useless and annoying, designed to further the addiction. For instance, besides the newsfeed, the Facebook chat application is my most hated addition to the social network. I don’t go on Facebook to chat. I go on to stalk. How do you think it makes me feel to hear that pop of the chat bubble when I’m on tagged photo 234 of my high school crush? It’s disconcerting and uncomfortable, like someone walking in on you while you’re struggling to pull a control-top undergarment all the way up.

Yet Facebook’s latest facelift completely overshadows my hatred for the chat application. The newsfeed’s takeover continues to perturb me. I’ve always liked the simple, straight-forward page of people’s individual information: A viewer is presented with a profile that the individual has crafted specifically for the eyes of others. It’s a presentation on that person’s own terms. In the new format, the priorities of the individual no longer come first. Instead of displaying what the person wants to show on his or her page, the viewer sees the individual’s activities and interactions with others. It’s like observing someone from a distance rather than looking them in the eye. And here I was thinking Facebook couldn’t get any creepier. As usual, I stand corrected.

Sadly, my outcry against the redesign only speaks to just how big a role Facebook plays in my life. While I ‘m less than thrilled with this new chapter, I just can’t put the Book down.