I had a birthday earlier this week and it was a strange experience. In the past year, more and more of my friends have joined facebook, including some good college friends that had previously been holdouts. Here is how the birthday wishes went. 100 facebook posts, 1 text message, 1 gchat, a couple e-mails, and a few calls.I decided with a friend today (who coincidentally, managed to call the day after with a terrific excuse) that facebook birthday wishing is only ok if it's incremental. It's the perfect way for someone you kinda know or haven't spoken to since you were 12 to wish you a happy birthday. But, your besties -- they owe you a call if they're not seeing you.
I thought this was particularly interesting given that a good friend of mine had been raving about how she'll love facebook for forever because it made her birthday amazing. Everyone knew it was her special day and she heard from everyone she hadn't heard from. It's interesting that this so-called social networking tool led me to feel a bit more disconnected. It also led me to wonder, where's the right balance of real face-to-face vs. virtual connections in this techie world?
Maybe I should figure that out before I start working for one of these guys....
