In your Facebook

I can’t be the first person to have noted that the social networking phenomenon has resulted in the complete trivialization of communication.

I mean, it’s one thing when any buffoon with an Internet connection and the ability to type can spew authoritatively the kind of crack-brained opinions that you used to encounter only on talk radio. Only now with misspellings and a complete absence of understanding of punctuation.

But Facebook has elevated the annoyance of minutiae to Himalayan heights.

It seems that the combination of a guaranteed audience (your “friends”) and the access afforded by the BlackBerry and iPhone (examples of “smart phones”, although they actually seem to bring out the moron in their users) has resulted in the kind of “update” that just boggles my mind.

I’m talking the, “At the pizza parlor”, followed by, “Hard to choose—pepperoni or sausage?” followed by, “Went half-and-half” (with a photo), followed by, “Couldn’t finish it” (with another photo), and finally, “What to have for dessert?”

Or the, “Packing the car for Florida”, “Getting in the car and heading out”, “Just getting to I-95”, ad nauseam for 758 miles. (Special attention to South of the Border.)

So far I haven’t encountered the trips to the loo, but I have no doubt whatsoever they’re on the horizon.

I’ve had to hide two friends’ posts for precisely this reason. (And, interestingly, one of them was a complete Luddite until she got her BlackBerry not long ago.)

Honest to God—can’t people just sign up for Twitter and splash their tiny little updates amongst the crowd that can’t pay attention for longer than 140 characters?