[pc86]

The argument I've heard in favor of this is that in 1995 if you wanted to talk to Aunt Sylvia in Indiana you had to pick up the phone and call her. More often than not, this resulted in a 20-30 minute conversation where you talked about something. This would happen, what, once every few weeks or months? Now, you see her in your news feed, and you might like it or fire off a one-sentence [fragment] comment. This mini-interaction happens on a weekly or daily basis, so you feel like you're more in touch with what Aunt Sylvia's doing now, when in reality it's much more superficial.

[graphitezepp]

Facebooks whole shtick is making you feel like your being social. In reality you are partaking in the most superficial 'fast food' social needs scratching imaginable. This causes people to become addicted to a constant stream of ultimately unsatisfying validation at the cost of spending time on meaningful relationships.

[DougN7]

Facebook being social 'fast food' (or junk food) is the best analogy I've seen. Great thought!

[bridge_ro]

That's a good pull quote to keep up your sleeve: Facebook is the McDonald's of the internet. It's unhealthy and kinda crap but everybody consumes it, and the ones who don't seem stuck up for some reason.

[majewsky]

So, in this thread, I already learned that Facebook is AOL 2.0, and also the McDonald's of the Internet. Does anyone have other good analogies for Facebook that they want to share? :)