Classmate Response, Final Week

Brett, in your Oddity you deal with Facebook, which is so engrained in our society that it is difficult to separate it from the strong connotations that comes with it. Facebook seems to be one of those things where everyone has an opinion on it, and it’s usually a strong one.  I think to handle Facebook is such a difficult opportunity. The main point of this piece seems to compare facebook to life’s progression—which is interesting but a little used. Facebook itself has a timeline feature, comparing your facebook usage and history over your life’s timeline—it’s almost depressing how empty mine is from 1991-2010. That aside I think you touched on something almost a little more interesting—the opening, “Facebook tells me my friend has a cold.” It seems so distant, so mundane. Facebook reports, like a newspaper. There’s a almost journalistic distance to Facebook, which is so interesting because it is an application intended to keep us and our relations closer together. I would have liked to have seen more investigation in that regard. Also, consider some tweaking here and there. “Communicates the word of God in approximately twenty to thirty words, usually in the form of a quote.” Can be sharpened and works just as efficiently without the “usually in the form…” part. Also, “Catching up felt like reading a short story written by your friend.” Can be reworded to something simpler, like, “Catching up is reading your best friend’s story.” I think you found something fresher in Facebook, and that’s saying quite a lot.