It's a Small World After All

Well, I was definitely laughing out loud while watching the Small World clip, which is probably a first for a homework assignment at Stanford. The general gist of the clip is that with social networks like Freindster, the entire concept of relationship is becoming thouroughly distorted. I found the analysis interesting and found myself agreeing on almost every count. As a matter of fact, I have been having the discussion with several people about theFacebook.com and how (in my mind) who your friends on the facebook are means absolutely nothing. I find it interesting that there are actually people who pride themselves in being able to say, "I have 300+ friends on the facebook!" I have been asked more than once by RL friends if they should accept a friend request; why does it matter? Who cares? The facebook and similar systems are nothing more than databases on some server somewhere with a bunch of rows and columns that happen to have real people's names associated with them. I've also found it interesting that the facebook keeps expanding what it can be used for, now having support for small, exclusive groups that are only open by invitation. Awesome...now we have cliques somehow embedded in the aforementioned database. The coolest two features of the facebook in my opinion are a) that it functions as a more easily navigated phone book, allowing you to reunite with long-lost friends, and b) that it shows the degrees of separation with people that you find on the facebook, actually proving that it is indeed a small, small world.