Facebook: What an Enormous Waste of Time

So now the news comes that Facebook is going public, and its net worth might be valued at $100 billion. Really? How is that possible. How did Mark Zuckerberg turn a vindictive prank against the girfriend who dumped him into a capitalist colossus? Only in America could the airing of our dreary dronings, petty gripes, and existential longings be turned into obscene profits. I am not now on Facebook and hope never to be, even though my publisher thinks it is a good idea. If I posted my daily activities on a public wall it would be called grafitti. On Facebook it is called social networking. My wife is on it, but often complains it is a vast wasteland of detritus. She has tried to explain to me how it works. One post appears on your wall and my wall if you friend one another. So that anything that gets posted by that person appears on your page. But you can always un-friend (I never thought the day would come when "un-friend" would be used as a verb). As she tells me this, my eyes glaze over and my mind goes numb. Which is probably Facebook's intended effect. I resist all urges to scream, "Who gives one flying fuck?" Here's a sample of recents posts: "LMFAO...gotto run, dewing the LKYTS...bak up freo" "hahaha..soo--oo-o KOOL...less parta-ay-ay" "NMBFF...whatta S-L-U-T-E...amazzing GGSA" Defenders of Facebook say that at least we are communicating with one another in writing. I might agree, if only I could understand what was being written. My wife's ex-student posted this: "Morn up MSGF, geting my brew on...stoking for the TON!" I responded with the only modern acronym I know: "TMI." Facebook is beyond all my capacity for comprehension. And I take great pride in my ignorance.