Okay I agree that I have almost 5000 friends on Facebook, but I can explain that easily. I am not a local champion of some sort, neither a superstar nor some self-accomplished dude with lots of fans checking me out. There are two simple reasons why I have generated this number of people to the point that Facebook has officially banned me from adding more friends and require that I create a fan page. First, I am a functional public relations officer of my Alumni association, and by that privilege, I need to connect with as many members as possible to keep information flowing. These members make up almost half the number of friends I have. The second reason is that from 2005 when I joined Facebook, I had determined that it’s either it is of use to me or I drop it. So when I began seeing its potential as a platform for connecting with positive virtue, I started leveraging its power to reaching out to people who have so far made a huge impact in my life. Only a small number of people on my list are personally unknown.

But in the past months I have be appraising the inefficiencies and deficiencies in my life, especially those having to do with online relationships; those affiliations nurtured by cyber ϋber culture. Just like every other outlet of human interaction facilitated by technology, social networking has proven to be the neo-globalization that makes the economic definition trivial. I have created new friendships, reactivated old ones, facilitated strategic partnerships transcending geography and culture, promoted successful events all through social networking. And we know of course I wouldn’t be wrong if I posit that Facebook is now synonymous with the term social networking. So, most if not all of the above feathers in my social cap were awarded by Facebook. But frankly there lies this little matter that needs to be addressed, and this borders on the nature of cyber social contacts. Have they made the world more closely knit, or simply noncommittal?
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