25 reasons why 25 Things Lists on Facebook annoy me

1. If you aren’t on Facebook, you wouldn’t understand that there’s this new craze called “25 Things”.

2. Its purpose is to get you to reveal 25 things people don’t know about you to the world. In other words, so long privacy!

3. A lot of the things people post are things that people know or assume. I have a sense that if the Pope wrote a 25 Things list, right up there would be, “I’m Catholic.”

4. It’s a chain-lettery thing. You get tagged with the idea that you’ll post your own list.

5. I’ve been tagged 5 times and read twenty other lists.

6. I didn’t learn anything particularly new or earth-shattering.

7. I wonder if it’s just another in the blog -> facebook -> myspace -> twitter technology enhanced ability to narcissize on a personal level.

8. I understand that putting that sentence on a blog is somewhat self-defeating. I’m OK with that.

9. Lists seem so less personal than a journal entry. For instance, have you really learned anything about me in 1-8? Nope.

10-25. Eh. I’m tired of it already.

I am claiming original rights to the concept of micronarcissism (the constant use of social networks to promote one’s place, ideas, status, identity, etc.). I’m somewhat against it, but that’s because I’m struggling with the idea of individual opinions mattering. Group opinions matter, but rarely does a single person get a chance to make a difference on the basis of what they write or say. You won’t find me on twitter. I don’t have a text plan. The wife has the location-aware phone. This blog is one of my few outlets of myself into the larger world, and even then, I don’t really discuss a lot of the things that are going on. If something big happens, yeah. However, the everyday stress of life seems kinda silly to talk about. Everyone has it, and my perspective on it won’t matter to statistically 100% of the world’s population (rounding up).

Another somewhat scary issue is revealed in this article about geotagging and how nothing’s private anymore. I guess the good news is that our lack of privacy, brought to you by Google, can really help verify people’s physical claims. You say you were in jail? Let’s go to the criminal court docket and see when you were arraigned. It’s out there.

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