The One With All the Facebook

One of my favorite questions to ask in an interview is the uninvention question – “throughout history, there have been a lot of inventions that have changed the world. If you had the power to uninvent any one thing, what would you uninvent?” It really gives you an idea of what they find important, and it’s also a great way to see the inner workings of a person’s mind.

By far, the most popular answer I get is Facebook. I guess it’s the fact that we’re part of the technology generation or the idea that you take our internet away from us for one day and we go through withdrawal, but it kind of surprised me – the ability to uninvent anything, and you choose Facebook? The more I think about it, though, it makes sense.

Have we lost the importance of face-to-face interaction because of Mark Zuckerburg? Or do we appreciate it more because it happens less often? Have birthdays become less special because it’s no longer impressive to “remember” the day someone first cried their way on to Earth? Has Facebook chat and stalking people completely taken the joy out of actually getting to know another person? Are we quicker to judge because of what people put on Facebook? Or are friendships more superficial because you are now “friends” with anyone you meet for 12 seconds on a subway? And what about relationships – after all, we all know “something isn’t legit until it’s Facebook official.”

But imagine a life sans Facebook – would there be more “real” friendships? Or would we just find another outlet to procrastinate our time? We may not be as easily “stalked,” but I can’t imagine our time would be any more productive. Would keeping in touch actually become harder? And how would I be able to see those embarrassing pictures of you from the ninth grade? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I will tell you this – without Facebook, I don’t know how I would have come across something this awesome:

So after much contemplation (and the occasional SVU break so as to not make my head hurt), I have come to the conclusion that if I could uninvent anything, it would be those silly, unanswerable, fake-philosophical questions people put in their blogs.