How many Web Watch readers are on Facebook?
Here’s a better question: how many Web Watch readers are NOT on Facebook?
Ah, that’s a bit more interesting. What better icebreaker for a room than to discuss reasons why someone has chosen not to be on Facebook. Are they missing out on anything from their friends or family? Do they not get invited to parties or see the latest vacation photos from their neighbors?
Some would argue that not being on Facebook is liberating. It can make you interact with people the way they were meant to be interacted with: in person, one-on-one.
You know, like we used to before Facebook came around.
But Web Watch has found a reason that you might want to reconsider your anti-Facebook stance:
I HAD a life but FACEBOOK ATE IT!!
According to this German newspaper, not having a Facebook account is the first sign that you are a mass murderer.
We know, what?
What they really are saying is that anti-social behavior — such as eschewing Facebook — is just one of the warning signs that psychologists and other mental-health professionals should be able to key off of to determine whether one was going bat-crazy in the head.
Using recent mass-shooting killers as their reference point, they weren’t active on Facebook… and while they were active on other social websites… it was the lack of being on Facebook that drove them over the brink!
Some are calling the paper’s conclusion a bit… bogus. You can’t use the examples of these two as pointing to their lack of Facebook as the reason for their actions. It’s a bit ridiculous, right?
Look, 10 years from now, it’s quite possible that the Next Big Thing will come along and replace Facebook with something better. And when that happens, only the hipsters will be left on Facebook (and the super-hipsters will migrate over to MySpace), while everyone “normal” jumps on the next social train with all the other psychopaths.
See? It doesn’t matter what system you’re on – or not. You can’t use Facebook participation as an indicator of one’s likelihood to commit a crime.
Can you? What are your thoughts?