Please Facebook Responsibly.

Having a pro-active status on Facebook is the first step to greatness.
As sayings go, that's probably a bit rubbish, it's also a massive lie. Facebook is fast becoming the world largest social networking site (Myspace still holds the number one spot, despite being an unwieldy behemoth) it's also becoming the number one choice to waste a serious amount of time. I have friends who seem to literally conduct their whole lives around Facebook, my girlfriends cousin even announced his engagement through it.

However despite it turning some people into an e-Junkie, it does have some good points. First of all it allows you to keep tabs on all those people who you vaguely remember but never really spoke to, even though you spend your formative years sat next to them and occasionally letting them take the blame for your own misdeeds. School memories aside the main purpose of Facebook is to let everyone know exactly what you are doing with each one of those precious minutes that have been bestowed on you, which judging by a brief run through the most recent ten status updates is not alot (one of them even includes a reference to a baked potato, if that is honestly the most interesting thing you can think to write then just give up and go back to bed).
Maybe it's me, maybe all of my mates need to know this sort of information and i'm out of sync with the rest of the world, or more likely it's those mates who don't update their statuses every two minutes that are out having a good time and like me are baffled when they next sign in to find that Facebook is demanding to know what you've been up to, like a particularly neurotic girlfriend, almost causing you to go "woah! I've y'know just been out doing stuff, with my mates" I'm dreading that one day it'll innocently start asking about Myspace and then it will be time to move on, just like i did before.
I'm not proud of the way i treated myspace, yes it was slow and ugly and hardly ever did anything useful but it didn't deserve to be dropped on it's arse. One day i just got up and left and didn't come back for nearly a year, by which time it'd changed the way it looked and operated, and was no longer the social networking site i knew it as.

Back to the good points of statuses on Facebook (which is why i started writing this, and not to turn Myspace into some jilted lover) those people who do occasionally write proactive status updates sound like they might actually be doing something useful rather than checking how fat your old class mates have got (not very) but does anyone chase up these people who proclaim to have completed all of their coursework in 4 hours, no of course not. For all we know they could've just lied to everyone they know, (which is what it must be like working for The Sun) i suggest that we should all ask for proof of these people who have enough time to be fairly active and yet update their status no less than 15 times in one day. This form of Facebook lying is bad for your reputation because when you finally get the courage to venture outside and meet up with your friends they will find you dull and uninteresting (and horribly pasty skinned) and your real social life will be over followed shortly by your Facebook one.