In my opinion, our culture has jumped a community shark. Facebook, and its little sister Twitter, have ultra-condensed our interactions with one another, allowing us to squeeze them in between other important activities in our lives, like driving too far to work, getting our kids to too many activities, and our required exercise, meditation, and hobbies.
Facebook is a symptom of our cultural disease - over consumption.
Just like the slow food movement, we need to start a slow social movement. Write a friend an email. Better yet, write a letter with pretty paper and a pen with actual ink and a stamp . Call your mom for a long Sunday afternoon chat. Drop-in at a friend's house with a casserole and bottle of wine and whittle away an evening on the porch.
These activities shouldn't be luxuries. They are necessities. We have become a nation of social hoarders that must clear out our mental attics and garages, to-do lists and should-do lists.
In our quest to consume more, know more people, connect more, do more, we have lost the essence of community. Community is not quantity, it is quality.
Think of what was important in a friendship as a child; it applies today as well. Know your best friend's middle name and favorite color. Revel in a delightful shared past-time. Stay up too late giggling.
That is what makes a relationship rich - not knowing that someone just made a peanut butter sandwich.
Edited to add: My firm commitment melted in the face of a plea from my best friend to continue on FB because we don't see each other often enough. Evidently, family over principles for me.
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