Facebook too shall pass

This gives me hope. We may just outlive Facebook and Twitter. But even if we don't...

... Just think, a thousand years from now digital archaeologists might dig up the remains of your LOL cats and vacation photoblog and ask in awe and amazement, "Who were these people?" and "What were they thinking?" Because you'll be long dead but personal data never dies.

(There won't be LinkedIn then either because everybody knows that in the future there is no more money, hence no need for job networking; it'll be a socialistic paradise enabled by rational scientific advancement and one-world government where everybody wears identical unitards and gets along.)

But for those of you crave constant contact with your Facebook, there is also a bright side to a future without it: Perhaps, just perhaps, the posted minutiae of your trek to Starbucks or to pick up your dry cleaning may actually seem interesting to human beings a few millenia from now, as opposed to people today.

Social media's moment will pass – but when?

February 18, 2012 | New Scientist

URL: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328523.300

More proof Facebook is a simulacrum

Our hard-wired genetic limitation on meaningful association with others may disappoint you, but there is still room for optimism.

First, your world is more intimate than you think it is, no matter how big you want to make it, or how big you feel under pressure to make it in today's global world. So concentrate on cultivating your personal "village" of 150 or fewer people: it's yours and nobody else can do it for you.

Second, you are one of only 150 (or fewer) of the most important people of every friend or close associate you have, i.e. you are automatically a member of their village, too. You may be more special to others than you think!

Third, the purpose of networking isn't to endlessly collect business cards and get acquainted with more and more people, it's to cultivate meaningful relationships in your village of 150 (or fewer) friends and associates, and from it receive real recommendations and reliable info, thereby extending your circle of trust beyond 150 still in a meaningful and personal way, unlike feckless friending on Facebook or connection collection on LinkedIn.

UPDATE: I added like 15 contacts on LinkedIn over the past few days. Guilty!

Don't Believe Facebook; You Only Have 150 Friends

June 4, 2011 | All Things Considered on NPR

URL: http://www.npr.org/136723316