raj egged me to sign up for twitter and i said yes on the condition that he would update my status for me. that was two days ago. today, i found myself exploring twitter and updating my own status. twice already and i’m giddy to make another one soon. i know twitter is suppose to keep your friends updated on what you are doing as often as you could. but i don’t really have any followers on my account except my loyal fans, aka husband and sister and yet, i’m slowly being sucked in the twitter world. as if friendster and facebook are not enough to keep me entertained.

i opened my friendster account on october 2006. again, it was raj who asked me to do so. he said it was a good way of staying connecting with family and friends and finding old ones whom we lost in touch with since we were in japan at that time. and it didn’t disappoint. friendster became an amusing hobby; another venue to communicate with friends, old and new. i found my almost forgotten childhood and high school acquaintances and friends. i re-connected with people that used to be part of my life. i was able to keep track of events that transpired in their lives i wouldn’t have known otherwise. through friendster, i was able to compare my life with others’; envy and yet be happy with their successess; or, rejoice in their failures (insert evil laugh here). in other words, i stalked people through friendster.

the thing i liked most about friendster was that when it was new, people wrote about testimonials to each other. it was a great opportunity to tell other people how wonderful someone is. and for a narcissistic person that i was, that feature was akin to chicken soup for the soul. yes indeed. but in all fairness to me, i did write a lot of testimonials for other people too without being forced to. now, the testimonials have been replaced with comments, much to my dismay, in keeping up with myspace and facebook. what’s worse, there has been a lot of hacking going on which enables posers to send lewd graphic messages or junk emails. having said that, i don’t go to friendster that much anymore. i have moved on to facebook where the population is more diverse on an international scale. friendster, on the other hand is dominated by the filipinos as myspace is to americans.

i opened a facebook account a year and a half ago through an invitation sent by my former boss delphine. through facebook, i am able to connect with both filipino and international friends, officemates and family members living in and out of the country. now, i can stay in touch with them and keep track of their lives with a brief message on their wall, a comment in their picture or a virtual poke every now and then. unlike friendster, keeping a facebook account is not merely an amusing hobby that i partake, it is a necessity in this age and in this world where international borders are being crossed, physically or otherwise.

but facebook does not only prove how small the world is or that we all live in six degrees of separation. the other social networks can attest to that too. the best thing about facebook, for me is that it embodies the concept of global village, or at least that is how it appears to be in my case. for instance, i know when my filipino friend mel who now resides in singapore, is up to start her day despite the time and geographical difference, thru her status update in facebook because she is one of those many people who constantly updates it. i also know that my sister spent time playing ‘word challenge’ to beat my record when she was supposed to write her thesis. now she’s on top of the leader board while i moved to the third spot after jennie who is currently in canada. several other friends from other parts of the world play the same game and i know from the scores who’s doing well. another example would by my colleague stephanie who went on a business trip in brazil a couple of weeks ago. i know that she combined business and pleasure from the pictures she posted and that she got stuck in sao paulo for a night before finally making it home. small, random things you would never have learned if not for facebook.

indeed, our lives are now an open book. thanks to facebook.