About Face(book)

I'm not sure I fit in at Facebook. Although I understand that social network sites are what you make them, and I'm prepared to use them as tools with which to maintain certain channels of communication, I find myself unable to use Facebook in particular in the manner with which others seem so comfortable.

Before I begin attacking them, its worth noting that my 'friends' on Facebook are all people I'm interested in knowing. There has been no sympathy "friending" (oh, how annoying it is that the spellchecker didn't pick up 'friending', but was reticent about 'spellchecker'), and no-one has yet earned sufficient wrath that I have wished to "de-friend" them.

However, and let's be blunt about this, I really don't give a flying fuck about the fact that a friend of mine is about to head to the pub for the afternoon, or about any other similarly inane snapshots of their life. Why do people think I'd be interested in knowing this? When did it become acceptable to be so fucking bland?

I know, there are stale old arguments which run along the lines of "well, don't read it then". Rubbish; I need to read it in case something genuinely interesting happens, like the wife of a friend, who is very pregnant, gives birth, and an announcement is made through this happily convenient, widely available channel. I don't have a choice, because in among the news that someone is clipping their fucking toenails are nuggets of pure news gold.

So, what is the solution? I'll tell you what: boring flags. Every time someone writes something so mind-numbingly dull that it brings you to tears, simply ping the boring flag. Three boring flags in a 24h period and the user is banned from posting for a day.

Problem solved. Now, I'm off to close the bathroom window...