We suck

So that TIME article that I linked in my last post - you may have noticed that it described the backlash against Facebook as "what may be Gen Y's first official revolution." How disappointing is that? When I first read it, it sort of bounced off of me. I noticed it, but didn't really think about it. But the more I thought about it, the more disgusted I got. Plus I heard there was a NY Times article about the same thing, even more focused on this being our "revolution."

How embarrassing it is to be in this generation. Knowing all the shit that's going on in this country and around the world, and this is what really upsets us--a trivial and superficial part of our social lives. And I'm as much to blame as anyone. Probably more - I wrote 2 blog posts about the facebook thing.

But let's take a look at some numbers. I assumed that Iraq is probably the "biggest" political issue at this point (i.e. the most likely issue for facebook users to create groups about). A global search for "Iraq" returned 404 groups. Not too unimpressive. But out of the ones I looked at, the highest membership was at just over 1500. Sensing that I was wrong in my assumption of Iraq being the most facebook-group-worthy issue, I realized it might be gay rights. "Equal rights for gays" has just over 11,000 members. Not too bad. But the facebook group the TIME article talked about had like 13,000 in just a few hours. And it now has hundreds of thousands of members. A bit depressing, no? And yes, I know, Facebook is not meant to be a forum for political discussion, but perhaps that's the problem right there. What if our parents had had facebook when they were in college? I imagine they would joined groups opposing the war in Vietnam and supporting civil rights by the hundreds of thousands. Even if facebook is not necessarily meant to be a place for political action, it still shows what we care about. And in this case, it's somewhat depressing.

A few months ago I was having a discussion with a few friends on whether we would have rather lived back then (our parents' generation), or now. I think the answer is pretty clear.