I used to call it Facetube just to annoy the kids
Whose usual reaction was to chorus ‘It’s Facebook, durr’ before returning to their posts. Love it or loathe it, the reality is that Facebook is utterly addictive and an easy way to while away an empty hour… or four.
Despite having just 92 friends compared to my eldest son’s 1,080, I’ve succumbed to the often mindless stream of babble that populates the site.
Alex Smith is overjoyed at passing his driving test, baby Jennifer’s first solid meal, Dave Lewis just checked in at San Francisco Airport.
The posts are usually self-congratulatory or yuckily sentimental, but maybe that’s purely because I’m a Jack Dee kind of guy.
And I’d challenge anyone with 1,000 ‘friends’, how many of them would be on hand if your boiler broke or you needed a lift to hospital?
I’ve got about six genuine friends in the real world, so perhaps Facebook isn’t the real world but a parody of what a gooey, ‘aren’t I great?’ world would be like.
That’s the thing you see. Reality and creativity are inevitably blurred by Facebook, which is why the latest development from its clever designers is causing such a stir.
Its new ‘tag suggestions’ feature allows users to identify people across multiple photos at once using facial-recognition software.
Boffins use face-recognition software found in many photo editing tools to match your new photos to other photos you’re tagged in.
A cool new addition if you’re trying to trace an old school friend who is now grey or bald, but sinister if you’re a parent.
The new tool is already winning its own unwelcome recognition from privacy groups and legal people who fear users will forget to opt out.
They say it’s yet another chip away at society’s natural barriers and raises questions about the kind of data Facebook is collecting from users and their photos.
And there’s also the issue of what Facebook does with the user data once it collects it – and beyond.
The fact that it’s opt out and not opt in will mean the majority of us – particularly those in the ‘Facebook-curious’ generation – will soon have our names on a group shot near you.
But even if you opt out it doesn’t mean Facebook will stop trying to recognise your face. Just that they will stop suggesting that other people tag you.
Campaigners fearing another nail in the coffin of online privacy suggest mass sabotage where users upload images of animals and stuffed toys and tag them as themselves.
Would that mean then that Rupert, Dennis the Menace, Zippy and George – God bless ’em – would be among my new best friends?