I just finished reading Zadie Smith's brilliant essay on the facebook generation, aka us.  

Before I even finished reading the article, I had emailed it to two people; I had also posted it to my facebook wall.  

The thing is that I agree, almost completely, with Zadie's critique of facebook.  But beyond that, I agree with her take on what it is doing to us as people, and what it is doing to our relationships.

Facebook, as Zadie argues, reduces us to a shadowy and incomplete version of ourselves.  Our likes and dislikes are well organized, our relationship status clearly defined, along with our religious and political beliefs.  Our photos are posted, our hundreds of 'friends' continuously comment.  Our interactions with our peers are superficial at best.  

But we are so much more than the accumulation of photos and beliefs and books and tv shows and 'friends'.  We are not reducable to our online presence, from which we increasinly refuse to disconnect.  

In my arguments against facebook, and especially my "principled" stance against twitter, I usually make exactly this point:

"The last defense of every Facebook addict is: but it helps me keep in contact with people who are far away! Well, e-mail and Skype do that, too, and they have the added advantage of not forcing you to interface with the mind of Mark Zuckerberg—but, well, you know. We all know. If we really wanted to write to these faraway people, or see them, we would."

Facebook (and twitter) help us keep in contact with people who we wouldn't necessarily through other, slightly more time consuming, technological tools.  It makes me wonder, if I am unwilling to write a 10 minute email to update some one, personally, on my life, are they really important enough to keep in touch with?

And yet, I do not delete my facebook account.

My morning typically look like this:

9:16 Alarm rings, snooze

9:25 Alarm rings, snooze

9:31 Alarm rings, roll out of bed

walk, in underwear (hopefully roommates have left the apartment) to the coffee machine, fill with water, turn on

sit on couch (still in underwear).  Check email.  Worry that work will infringe upon my morning.  Delete 17 emails from various list serves, read anything from real people.

still on couch, click from the gmail tab to the facebook tab (neither is ever closed).  click refresh.  click most recent.  scroll.  scroll.  scroll.  scroll.

If facebook is a world in which I am so uncomfortable, why do I stay?  Why is it one of the first activities of my day, everyday?  Am I addicted?  Do I really think it will keep me connected to those I care about?  Do I really think it will help me stay informed, and on top of whatever issue may be going on that day?  Do I think it will help me stay connected to my various communities (queer, radical, scientific, literary) and up-to-date on what I should be reading?  

I don't know why I stay, to be honest.  I may delude myself into almost believing enough of these reasons to make Facebook seem worthwhile.  Maybe I am afraid of being disconnected.  Maybe I never got over being a loser as a kid, and maybe facebook makes me feel, if virtually, popular.  Maybe it does connect me to communities and information.  

And maybe I have just grown incredibly used to living in worlds that don't quite fit.  Worlds that bristle.  I am a queer man, and the world is certainly heteronormative.  I am a socialist, the world is decidedly and violently capitalist.  The world from which I came, of loggers and farmers, of tea partiers and disaffected white people, is not a home.  Nor is the world of white liberal academia.  I tend to surround myself with queer people of color these days, but I obviously am not a perfect fit in this world either.  I certainly stick out.  And get looks.  And get called a chocolate queen.  

Perhaps this shifting between many worlds, none of which are completely comfortable, allows me to accept facebook for the little good that it does, and put up with the discomfort it causes.  

Or perhaps I am just not, like any addict, ready to quit.  Perhaps I live in a carefully guarded self-dillusion where I look down on people for always being on their smart phones, for updating their twitter accounts about their bowel movements, for reducing their lives to 140 characters, or to a tag on a facebook page, but where I am unwilling to give up or even admit my own dependence on the very same technologies.  Perhaps I am striving for an impossible ballance between technology and reality.