"On your marks......Get set......GO!"

Well, It's been about 7 1/2 hours into my facebook media deprivation experiment and I've already begun to identify what an integral part social networking plays in my life. As mentioned in my blog yesterday, I officially logged off of facebook at 11:59 pm last night; however, prior to that, I spent a few hours on facebook connecting with my friends, checking messages and updates, and just checking out the "goings-on". While so doing, a close friend of mine (we share the same birthday and were roommates in our late teens/early twenties), who now lives in Florida, IM'd me and let me know that she took and impromptu trip to NY and was in the Chelsea section of Manhattan - live and direct! I was so excited! We chatted and made plans to get together today, as she is leaving early Sunday a.m. to return home. As we finalized our plans, we exchanged numbers and said "Ta-Ta".

As I smiled in my head at the prospect of seeing my good friend in just a few hours I thought, "What if I'd chosen to begin this experiment earlier in the day and hadn't been on facebook at that time? I would not have known she was in town because she didn't have my phone number." That's pretty profound. It doesn't end there, either. To further illustrate just how much my "peoples" and I use facebook to communicate, in those two hours or so that I was on facebook last night I learned that just yesterday alone a friend of mine got married at the courthouse, another was in L.A. in 85 degree weather on a business trip, another's elderly mother moved in with she and her husband since we last spoke, and was able to view great pictures that my cousin posted of my children having a blast at her son's 11th birthday party last weekend.

This is the sort of "omnipresent knowledge" that Thompson talks about in his New York Times article, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy makes Facebook so interesting, intriguing, and addictive. For me, and I believe for the millions of other facebook users out there, there is something quite engaging about, irrespective of physical proximity, being "ambiently aware" of the intricacies and nuances of my friends daily lives. This is what attracts me to facebook. This is the luxury that this particular technological medium affords me. This, ultimately, is what I am being deprived of during this experiment.

-Double Consciousness