I think I just found a reason for facebook, and a new theory about the internet.

[wolven7]

Nirvana - [Sifting]--- From mendori: Facebook pokes pulse like a heart -- HP Labs study.

I have said before that I cannot think of a reason for Facebook. I can find a purpose for almost every other internet site, and interaction, but I have never understood the point of Facebook. (Portishead - [Cowboys]). Here's my new theory: Every sector of social interaction on the internet acts as centre of a brain, or, if you'll bear with me, the Psyche (Junian/Freudian sense).

LiveJournal seems the Ego, self interested, and trying to maintain a bit of status quo, while seeking to understand itself. MySpace [and most forums (Something Awful, Fark, etc)], then, is an expression of the Id. I don't think I need to explain that. Facebook, it seems, represents the benevolent emotial centre of the Internet. It is the interaction of people on a purely emotive level, but almost all of it good. It can be seen as the SuperEgo.

Now, what then, is our Jungian analysis? Where does your loyalty lie? What do you abhor, in the Internet? (The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - [Goin Down To Dunwich]). There is your Shadow. Your anima or animus. The Troll, the Mod, the Poster, the Lurker, the Flamer, and the Peacekeeper are a few of our Archetypes. The Internet, itself, is the Collective Unconscious, and we are seeking to impart our Conscious Will, on our Unconscious mind.

Mark the Time and the Date. I just gave the Internet the means by which to not merely think, but to process its own thoughts.

We have a psyche and a will.

Now hop to it.

Comments

[hametsunosaturn.livejournal.com]

I have said before that I cannot think of a reason for Facebook.

The point of Facebook is to keep track of people, in a sense. As you grow apart from your high school friends you can keep track of which colleges they go to and where they end up, how they're doing, what classes they're taking and so forth. Through Facebook I found old friends that I'd long since left behind in Illinois. There was a comical hunt for my once-best friend, Amanda Kelly, when there were several girls of that name about. I narrowed it down to three and found her. It was nice to talk to her again.

And while you may claim that if they were truly your friends, you wouldn't lose track of them, but I know from experience that you can try as hard as you want, but sometimes you still lose contact with people. It's weird to go back and it doesn't always work, but it's nice to know you can still find them and know they're alive and being successful somewhere.

Furthermore, an actual point to Facebook is college networking. A wide variety of college groups and clubs have an online club through Facebook. The Gay Straight Alience, the various fraternities and sororities (both social and business), and all other sorts of clubs often make groups in order to send out e-mails to group members easily. It's more effective than a mailing list in many cases, because the members can join and leave at will, rather than by requesting to be removed from the list. And it messages everyone in the group, so typos and such don't become an issue.

Finally, groups can be made to acquire attention for upcoming events. For example, Zombie Walk Atlanta had a Facebook group and must have spread the information of the event through viral marketing. I join the group, my friends see that I've joined, they check it out, they join, then their friends join and so forth. It's been highly effective for my own group of the Complaints Choir of Atlanta College Students. I needed to gain a group of people willing and able to assist in the project and word of mouth alone wouldn't have been effective (and LJ didn't work as well as I hoped it would).

With Facebook, I can start discussions, update recent news, keep a list of people who can help, and message everyone when certain stages of the project start happening (when we've got the music finished, when the lyrics are written for the song, when we're planning to meet and record or perform, et cetera). With Facebook I can also have students from other metro-Atlanta school be informed of the goings on and speak with people who they are not directly friends with. It allows a wider base of communication than a website that someone would have to go to separately or a messaging community.

I suppose, also, college bands can use Facebook as a form advertisement for their band. The Landmines had a Facebook group for their band. I know that Andy Potash's band, The Enders, have a Facebook group that nearly everyone at GSU probably knows about. (Andy seems a popular kid.)


I know a lot of people like to complain about Facebook for various reasons, but I find it better than MySpace. It was very college centric and it was just a convenient web page that allowed communication through friends. There's a lot of crap on there, but not as much as on some other networking sites (*cough*MySpace*cough*), so that's just my take on it. I hope it was informative and helpful.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

As I said, I could not think of a reason. The e-mailing function is something I remember hearing about, and not registering, for a while. Other than creating a networking node, in Internet Space, however, it still seems to have no function. Which I take as a sign of the growing diversity and complexity of the Internet.

Associations of parts, interactions between sectors,act as learned behaviours and associations, and recurrent memories. We find friends, find family, hit upon new interconnetions of groups, and ideas.

All of this only serves to reinforce my idea of Internet-as-Living-Pschological-Being, which is great, because I've been trying to figure out a way to map a mind onto the Internet, for a while.

Thank you, much, for this.

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

A lovely, horrible, informational mirror of the organism that is the natural world. Silver paths and green. I Love it.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Precisely my point. Only i was way too tired to say it so clearly. Thank you. :)

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

What I'm here for, love. Making things others say simply and painfully clear. X3

[wolven.livejournal.com]

:P Silly :)