It was interesting reading how you’d manage with a “friends” list, although you should edit in, if possible, the approximate number of “friends” you have on Facebook. I have about 150 and it’s a very different experience (I’d imagine). The Feed is much less overwhelming in volume. I actually enjoy reading many of their status updates, since they are mostly from people I care about. As for trivialities, inanities, and banalities, well that’s what God invented ranting for (i.e. smiting Heathens). You don’t have to lie down and take it.

If you have a friend who consistently clutters your Facebook feed with garbage let him or her know (in nicer terms if you intend on staying friends). Suggest that there should be value to posts, and that people who no longer wear diapers should not be like chirping infants crying out for attention (and no, people wearing adult diapers are not off the hook unless they’re brain damaged, in which case they should be stinking up nursing homes, not Facebook). Solipsistic posting might be appropriate for special occasions, perhaps once or twice a year, but really, you can tell them politely or not so politely, to shut up because no one else wants to hear when they are brushing their teeth. In my opinion this is just a slippery slope to repulsively vivid Facebook descriptions of more private (and pointless) bodily functions— it’s just a matter of time before people start detailing their BMs in their status updates (actually, I’d be shocked if this new standard for civilizational decline hasn’t already begun, just wait until generation Y is wearing diapers again, that’s when the real deluge will begin).

I’d be more than happy to boot off at least half of the people on my “friends” list (except for the fact that every now and then someone I never talk to tells me that they’ve been reading and interested by some of the things I post, so I’d feel guilty excising them). I’m tempted to do it anyway, social conscience be damned, I want more privacy. I think a mass distribution of a well written (and polite i.e. not a copy pasting of this post) form email to everyone on my “friends” list who I’d like to kick off, explaining the situation and what I’m going to do about it might be in order. Oh, what joy it would be to have a friends list once again. And with less than a hundred people. Maybe even fifty. Bliss. … Nah. Fifty’s not going to happen.

A couple further considerations. If a giant “friends” list is being used for the purposes of advertising, then, by all means, never trim it or set it on fire. Also, keep a few really annoying people on the principle that the emotional prickling of self-mortification by an e-quivalent of a hair shirt is good for you. And of course, in addition to warding off pride (or narcissism in more modern terms), it keeps you grounded in reality. As much as I’d love to never hear from a few people about how Bush was the greatest president ever, and Sarah Palin is the the real Messiah (unlike that Obama Antichrist— I hear he’s a Muslim too… And he’s Black!), I don’t believe in living in a bubble shutting out vocal idiots (if only because of the historical principle that vocal idiots eventually mobilize with guns, or worse, if nothing is done about them). So… It helps keep me somewhat engaged with popular delusions, even when I’d rather disengage for the sake of my own mental health.

That being said, I can imagine other Internet residents preferring to live in self-constructed gated communities. Though I disapprove, it might be necessary for avoiding cardiac arrest before thirty. If one feels one’s life depends on it, by all means, indulge in a diet of sweetness, light, and treacle (while I make gagging sounds in my status updates).