Big Brother is Watching You...

As I'm sure you're all aware, Facebook has inserted yet another platform to our already-monitored lives recently--the chat window. I'm not sure if I like this window-thingy, it's too early in the game to tell. But, it got me to thinking....

I manage (or, attempt to manage) four email addresses, dozens and dozens of cell phone contacts, who-knows-how-many account names and passwords to random sites like Walgreens, Google, Amazon, WalMart photo center, Flickr, Yahoo!, Expedia, the list goes on and on...MSN, AOL and AIM...

I've so many identities I'm virtually schizophrenic. Literally. And now, when I log onto my Facebook, any one of my hundreds of friends (most of whom I haven't talked to in years, who has?) can chat me up. It hasn't happened yet, but it's so damn creepy I'm on checking my notifications to see if I'm tagged anywhere, and off before you can say confirm-friend-request three times fast.

As I mentioned before, I live in a college town, and besides loving spring, college kids love Facebook. So much, that most times while in the grocery line, I can scope a friend-of-a-friend that I saw at a party 4 Saturday's ago who lives with that girl I had English with last semester on the corner of Oak street...and so on and so forth. They may not be my real-life friend, they may not even know who I am, or that I exist. But via the miracles of Facebook, there's no hiding: I can rattle off their favorite beverage of choice, movie, and current class schedule if I wanted to. Creepy in a stalkish way eh? And I consider myself a casual, few-times-a-week user. Who knows what the Facebook addicts are thinking, or to what lengths they'll go to with their new chat outlet for communication.