What Sort of Facebooker Are You?

• More that 400 million people actively use the site.

• 50% log in everyday.

• The average Facebooker has 130 friends.

• In a month, 500 billion minutes are spent on Facebook.

However, Facebook is a double edged sword. A lot of people have a love hate relationship with it; it’s useful, that can’t be denied, but it’s addictive. Yes, it’s great that it allows you to keep in touch with people all around the world, but it also tempts us to keep up to date with people we hardly know… I’m sure no one really cares where their primary school ‘friends’ have been on holiday recently, but we probably know anyway.

In this age where we get notifications instead of letters, where it is acceptable to RSVP “Maybe”, and where you can create friend-webs, there are some who revel in the cyber-society, updating, adding, joining, and liking indiscriminately, and there are some who still haven’t joined Facebook. Whether you have such an extreme relationship with the world’s favourite anti-social-networking site, or sit somewhere in the middle, it seems everyone has their opinion on Facebook.

With such varying attitudes out there, we ask the question: what sort of a Facebooker are you?

• Clandestine addict:

This person spends more time that they’d care to admit on Facebook.

They will be a human archive of up-to-date trivia on just about everyone you know, but unless pushed will not admit that their gossip-fodder is from an hour too many spent browsing through wall-to-walls and friends-of-friends.

They will say things like “Did you know that Jo’s got a new girl friend?” and when you say to them, “Why yes, it popped up on my newsfeed”, they’ll reply: “Oh! It’s on Facebook already!” Implying (and obviously lying) that they found out through real human interaction, and not whilst sitting in their room ‘revising’.

• Flagrant up-dater:

The flagrant up-dater is the person who ALWAYS appears on your newsfeed.

You know what they had for lunch. You know that they’re “sooooo excited about the cinema tonight!”, or “sooooo hungover from Ziggy’s last night… lol!” You’ll know when their favourite song is on the radio; how many pages they have to read before tomorrow; their exam timetable; the name of their new gerbil. At least they don’t try to hide how much time they spend on line I suppose.

• The Hypocritical addict:

This Facebooker spends hours stalking people, but massively judges flagrant up-daters, and people who fill in the “about me” section, and who actually list their favourite films and books and TV shows.

They will talk about Facebook… “Dave and Kat have been getting pretty flirtatious in their wall-to-walls”, or, “I see you’ve joined the ‘I’d go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy looking leaf’ fan group, good call”, and such like. However, they will also say things like “Bloody hell, how many times does Bob need to update his status in one day! I don’t care Bob! I don’t care that you’re going to Leeds tomorrow!”

They probably spend just as much time on it as Bob, and talk about it way more than Bob. But Bob is still the loser with no life.

• Casual Facebooker:

The causal Facebooker puts you to shame, saying, when you complain to them of how often Bob updates his status, “Really? I haven’t checked mine for a few days.” The Casual Facebooker is cool and aloof and you want to be them.

• The Ageing Rocker:

It might be your dad, or your aunty, or your old teacher. You’re probably their only friend. But beware: just because they’re old and wear glasses doesn’t mean they can’t see all those sordid photos tagged of you on nights out, and then ask you about them at family reunions.

• Non-Facebooker:

Everyone knows at least one of these. They can’t be trusted.

• Rehabilitated former addict:

This brave Facebooker has touched the void and come out alive. They’ve clicked “deactivate”, and they probably feel all the better for it.

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