Matt Lettieri is writing an article

Allow me to issue a brief disclaimer before I say anything else in this article: I am an extreme hypocrite. There, it's out there, once and for all. It's true that from time to time I engage in some of the activities I'm about to ridicule. But the fact that I do these things doesn't eliminate the need for someone to say how stupid they can be. Yes, I'm taking the burden upon myself to speak out against an unstoppable force that is ruing the social interaction of our generation: Facebook. Or, as my grandpa once called it, Spacebook (obviously, a merger between Facebook and its cyber-interactive predecessor, Myspace).Here's how you know Facebook has reached much too lofty a position in society: it's one of those nouns that has attained verb-status. You know, like when someone says, "I'm going to water the plants." Water is a noun that we've also changed into a verb. It's so vital to our existence that one part of speech just isn't enough. Well, Facebook is the same way. We used to simply write on each other's Facebook walls. Now, we Facebook each other.

Amid this age of rapidly expanding technology, I wonder which form of communication will undergo the noun to verb transformation next. I predict that in the next year we'll be "iPoding" each other. Or is that already happening? Let's just make it easy on ourselves and start "braining" each other. That's my term for telepathic communication. "Hey, just brain me when you know what we're doing on Friday." Catchy, right?

(This isn't as unrealistic as it seems. I recently read an article about a biomedical engineering student who developed a contraption allowing him to post messages to Twitter by simply thinking them. No joke. Cyber communication is about to be taken to a whole new level.)

Pictures are another clue as to how important Facebook has become in our everyday lives. We don't take pictures anymore to preserve memories, or to capture a special moment, or because we're seeing something we've never seen before. No, we take pictures to put them on Facebook. What's the first thing people say after taking an especially noteworthy or outrageous picture? "That's going on Facebook." And then, of course, comes the whole argument of tagging and untagging. It's as if we think that if we do something idiotic or embarrassing in a picture, but then untag ourselves from the picture on Facebook, we're erasing that moment from existence. Then again, maybe we are if our existence is validated by Facebook.

The worst part of Facebook has to be the "What's on your mind?" feature, or, basically, Twitter on Facebook. It's just usually an overload of useless information - useless because half of your Facebook friends are probably people that you have no vested interest in whatsoever. You know which Facebook friends I'm talking about. There's that person you met that one time freshman year at that one event but then never saw again, and there's that guy you sat next to in math class your junior year of high school who you never really talked to that much, but he added you as a friend recently and you accepted because you would've felt bad ignoring him, etc.

We all have these Facebook friends and, despite the fact that we have no tangible relationships with these people outside of our computer screens, we still continually peruse their statuses. God forbid we might miss the fact that they just took a shower, or that they're about to eat dinner, or that this girl's pet gerbil just pooped on her new pre-cut jeans while she was trying to watch "America's next top reality TV star," or that this guy stayed up all night playing Xbox and killing mutated zombie aliens.

Here, then, are three of my other Facebook-related concerns:

1. When I receive a notification that says, "Jessica just compared you to one of her friends and thinks that you have darker arm hair," should I be flattered?

2. If I enter into a romantic relationship with a girl, am I officially dating her even before it becomes official on Facebook? Or is listing it on Facebook a prerequisite to actually being in a relationship?

3. If I don't like the same music, TV shows, movies, and books as you, should we really even be friends in the first place? Because I can only be friends with people who like to listen, watch, and read the exact same things as I do.

To those of you who don't have Facebook, well, I applaud you. You're clearly on a higher intellectual and moral plain than the rest of us. I'd really like to get rid of Facebook altogether, but I fear the consequences: I'd be all alone in the world and would carry a great emptiness inside of me.

Now, having said all this, I certainly see the positive aspects of Facebook. It's great for staying in touch with people who live far away, for reconnecting with friends from the past, for organizing events, and even for employment networking. Also, who doesn't like seeing dozens of variations of the phrase "Happy Birthday" show up on your wall once a year? However, Facebook is taking over our lives. There's got to be some way to control it. Any ideas? Just write them on my wall. Or better yet - brain me.