Facebook - ok, I have just found and engaged myself with this site for idlers. No, I told My Friend P, this does not mean that I am an idler. Well, not really. I like to think that my months, weeks, and days are chock-full of activity so I have no time to waste. And, what the heck, if I do stuff that one might define as idling, it is Constructive and Instructive Idling.

So, let's talk about my constructive introduction to the world known as Facebook. First of all, we know the average age of the majority of people who flirt with this site is about 22. Anyone else who is on the site who is over the age of, say 30, think that they are 22!

And then there are some 41-year-olds, like me, who have stumbled upon this site and are convinced that I am 41 pretending to be 22. What this means is that real old people will be totally irritated by this site and you will never ever get them engaging with Facebook. If you have to ask what is Facebook, well, you are what we call Real Old or just not with it.

Borderline Old People

The borderline old people now get on the site but don't get the basics - the thing is called Facebook - so you ought to have up your face? Your picture. So when you get on Facebook and see all those signups with no picture check it, those are the Borderline Old People. And then you have the real uncomfortably aged who not only fail to put their picture but tamper with their personal data.

Check My Special F who, in an effort to conceal his identity, not only refused to put up a picture but thought he definitely would not put in his real date of birth. He thought he would mess with the database by suggesting that he was born in 1901. Hmmm, oops, can't do that - Facebook might be young but it ain't stupid, there aren't any 107-year-olds using the Internet, and so Special F had his registration denied until he provided a more plausible birthdate, 1944. [Hmm, I guess that makes him a World War II child!]

Fascinating concept

But Facebook is indeed a fascinating concept. It takes the idea of networking to quite a profound level. I have found, unearthed people who I thought had disappeared from the face of the earth [summary: died]. All because it connects in one big connected net friends of friends who can connected to you if they want.

Here I underline what I wrote three years ago. The Internet and everything that it represents is the greatest invention that man has every seen. Greatest. Nothing else has so singly changed the way the world functions as the Internet has done. I am not digging the public banter on Facebook yet, but hey, I never said I was 22!

Email comments to: myfriendp@hotmail.com.