There Is A Life Outside Of Facebook

Ah, Facebook; the social networking site everyone's crazy about. It is the very piece of identification everyone should have, second to their identity cards. If you don't have Facebook, you'll look like an alien to everyone else. It's such an 'in' thing, that even the most stubbornly resistant people on planet earth would eventually succumb to the pressure of having a facebook account.

Contrary to other social networking sites, Facebook is not only limited to youngsters. Instead, it has successfully attracted hordes of users of all ages, ranging from kids to senior folk. I've heard of kids, as young as the age of SIX, asking for a Facebook account. And like it or not, we all dread the very day we'll see our parents/grandpatents sends us a friend request. Time to time, we would see a random teenager's status update reading something like this:

"Oh no! My mother sent me a friend request. Should I accept?"

or,

"My grandma is the coolest grandma on earth! She has Facebook!"

Excuse me, since when did Facebook become the pre-requisite for 'cool'? And what's with the surprised expression, like the world is ending tomorrow, when someone tells you he/she doesn't have a Facebook account? Please la, guys and girls. There IS a life outside of Facebook. Your virtual cow named Bessy on Farmville won't die even if you don't feed it for one day.

Okay, maybe it will.

But even if the cow dies, it shouldn't be such a big deal like everyone makes it to be. What's the point maintaining a virtual farm anyway? Honestly, I've been there too (not on Farmville though), playing Facebook games. In the end, we'll only find yourself playing it just for the sake of it without any goals. Some people will die if they don't log into Facebook for a single day. For others, it would seem like a huge sacrifice to make if they spend time with you instead of killing that Mafia boss from Timbuktu in Mafia Wars. It would be such a big deal to them until they would say, "Hey, I didn't log into Mafia Wars today because I attended your party, OKAY?!" Pfft! Big deal.

And you know what else I don't get?

Why is Facebook like the centre of the world to everyone? ESPECIALLY THE RELATIONSHIP STATUS?! I don't get the whole it's-not-official-unless-it's-on-Facebook nonsense. I've heard people gossip, "Hey, this so-and-so are officially together!"

And when I ask why 'official'?

"Because they just updated their statuses on Facebook!"

Come on lah, you mean all that holding hands, smoochy-moochy, lovey-dovey thing they do before that was not 'official'? And the best part is when I update people about other mutual friends, like, "Hey, did you know so-and-so are getting engaged?"

They'll ask: "Did you find out about that on Facebook?"

"No, I TALKED to them."

At the back of my head: "In case you don't know, it's something that normal people have been doing since the dawn of mankind."

I'm not saying that Facebook as a bad thing. It is actually very useful to keep in touch with old friends, communicate, share photos and stuff. But for goodness' sake, don't let it suck the life out of you!

People shouldn't take Facebook so seriously; it's not the whole world. For those of you who don't know, there IS a life outside of Facebook!