A good friend of mine has a birthday in late July. Because I had reached a point in my life where I no longer kept track of friend’s birthdays, but let Facebook alert me the day before, I assumed I would catch it during the morning, and send my well wishes. It was a busy Friday starting off with a call from work regarding an early review meeting, and I never checked Facebook, thereby missed my friend’s birthday completely. When I got back from the meeting, I realized I had missed the birthday, and cursed the social network and my dependency on it.
It hit me then that if I relinquish my birthday calendar to a website, I’m relinquishing any ownership over the friendships they are a part of.
If you don’t remember birthdays, don’t think about them in advance and plan for them, then the day-of reminder is only going to let you celebrate them in a rushed, and shallow way. And so it goes with every aspect of Facebook. The more you make it your conduit for social life, the less ownership over your actual friendships, events, and life you have, and the more you relegate those things to servers, alogarithms, and ad sellers.
