This Virtual Social Life

Cartoon via this blog, but created by Oliver Widder, a rather dapper Hamburg-ian.

Here's some filler text to enjoy while you ponder the meaning of "follow."

April marked the fourth consecutive month that Facebook ranked first for its number of unique visitors and time spent - InformationWeek, citing Nielsen data.

Time spent? How much time, exactly?

Um, 13.9 billion minutes. Up from 1.7 billion minutes. Now, I don't have the wherewithal to locate my nearest digital calculator, so I'll just believe the article when it tells me that's an increase of 700%.

SEVEN HUNDRED PERCENT, kids.

It looks cool when you write it in all caps, and it also is more frightening. It means that we are spending exponential more time in these little virtual bubbles, sending cryptic updates, fake-spying on high school acquaintances. (It's not stalking if there's no restraining order.)

What I find interesting is that Facebook is overtaking MySpace and yet it caters to a slightly older demographic. Translation: older people are learning how to "hang out" online, too. Now watch: the teenagers take advantage of our Twitter-Facebook obsession to get offline and do something surprising and perhaps wonderful, while our eyes remain glued to our virtual networks.