A Brief Rant

Okay, so Facebook has decided it wants to become more like Twitter and now when I look at my home page it's covered with one sentence status updates. I would like to think that people would take this as a challenging opportunity to say as much as possible in as small a space as possible--to harness the power of concision and say something thought provoking in just a single sentence. Instead, people seem to update their status constantly and manage to say absolutely nothing! Their updates are often so cryptic that they probably shouldn't bother saying anything at all. It's beginning to annoy me. Do people KNOW that they're sending these updates to hundreds of people? Because if they did why are they posting messages like:

"Why did this have to happen again?"
(your "this" is missing a referent. And unless you put in a referent I have no freaking clue what you're talking about, so WHY did you bother posting at all?)

"Waiting for the results"
(God! Results of what? Pregnancy test, mid-term exam, testing for some horrible disease? Why do people post things like this? The ambiguity is infuriating, and also allows readers to assume that their long-lost friends are waiting to see if they've caught an STD)

"Can't wait"
(Can't wait for what? We're having a problem with referents again. If you think it's important to share your excitement and joy with 300 near strangers, you would think you'd at least have the decency to share what it is you can't wait for.)

I am once again tempted to delete my Facebook profile entirely and so separate myself from ambiguity induced stress and frustration, but I'm still too scared to do it. It's like I'll be adrift in the world all alone if I can't check to see who has just had a soy chai latte at Starbucks, and who can't wait to get off work, and who drank too much beer, and who is feeling sad, and who is feeling happy. What would I do without invitations to do a quiz that will tell me what my stripper name should be, or what Disney character I am, or what animal I was in a previous life? The superficiality of it all is mind-boggling. This is not the equivalent of making a real human connection! And yet, I can't seem to pull the plug. As much as I'm desperate to declare Facebook dead and take its sad remains off life-support, I just can't do it. The illusion of a connection with hundreds of people is powerful, and I'm afraid that if I leave I'll miss something important. Like maybe one day one person will say something profound and earth shattering in their status update and I'll say "Yes! That's why I'm here. That's why I check Facebook a dozen times a day. Thank goodness I was present for that! That was the diamond in the rough I've been waiting for all this time." It might happen. But I sort of doubt it.