Hello, my name is Sophia, and I am a Facebook user.

My story began about a year an a half ago. College graduation was looming, and I was still young and innocent. I had gone to school far from home, and I was facing the prospect of the passage of months—years—decades—without seeing my friends again. I knew most of them wouldn’t be up for phone or email conversations, much less the long letters I used to write when I was in highschool. So when somebody whispered “Facebook account”—I signed up.

Sad, isn’t it?

Well, actually, no. Facebook turned out to be more “friend” than “unfriend.” It allows me to see what all my acquaintances are doing, to invite them over if I see they are visiting the area, to know when I should call or write (euphemism for email), etc., etc. I can send private messages to them. I can even get rid of the ones whom I should not have “friended” in the first place, without having to worry much about the consequences. Facebook games held no attraction for me and my interest in the quizzes fizzled out, so—here I am, a contented Facebook user.

Make that: an almost contented Facebook user. I’d still prefer you guys ringing me up, and you gals penning lengthy missives on feminine letterheard. But I’m not holding my breath. Facebook is too “convenient.”

For all its vaunted convenience though, Facebook has one dreadfully awkward aspect. I refer—not to the aforementioned games and quizzes, nor even to the notorious tendency of users to mix public and private information. (I always operated under the assumption that everything on my computer is probably public anyway.) I refer to that suspiciously innocent-looking little addition to one’s profile page, the one called “Relationships.”

Now if you happen to be a good married Christian, I have no problem with your putting that fact in a prominent position on your Facebook page. In fact, if you are a good married Christian, you probably should put that fact up, or else all your dear friends will be calling you wondering what has happened between you and dear George that they don’t know about? or, alternately, telling you how to set up your account, since obviously you missed a few things.

Again, if you are engaged and wish to publicize that fact, Facebook may be the way to go—though I’ve heard of engagements being broken before now.

Indeed, if you even wished to go so far as to state that you are “single” on your Facebook page, I’d have no real objections. It’s your page, after all!

But what I cannot understand is why the samhill anyone would put the fact that they are “in a relationship” up on Facebook. To me, “in a relationship” equals dating. Dating? Really? For how long? Did you go out once? Three times? Are you going steady? And what happens when you break up? That’s right, you’re “single!” again. Truly, “it’s complicated.”

I don’t actually object to my friends putting their relationship status up on Facebook. It’s been convenient for me. I know not to ask FunnyFace how WhatsIzName’s doing, because just last week she changed her status to “single.” I know it’s safe for me to go to YouKnowWho’s parties again, because he’s now dating IveForgotten.

So it goes. Perhaps these friends of mine find it easier to tell me and the rest of their friends this way, than to have to explain to every one of us that they broke up—again?

But such convenience to the contrary notwithstanding, I still think there must be something embarrassing in having to go back to your profile page, hit the edit button, and change that line. Perhaps you could leave it blank this time? But that would be cowardly . . . Better not to have started at all! But now that all your “friends” know you express yourself this way . . .

So you click the entry. You are now single, and all your friends know it.

Feeling better yet? I didn’t think so.

Should I call you and find out how you are doing? Or would that just be more painful? Maybe, since you let everybody know about it on Facebook, you’re over it: you don’t care: it would be OK to talk. Or, maybe, you hurt too much to talk yet, and that’s why you put your status on Facebook—so people would stop asking whether you were “still going.”

So I sit here on the other side of the screen, and thank my lucky stars that I never touched that button myself. Maybe I’ll call you—but probably not. After all, Facebook told me everything I really needed to know. It’s so convenient!

Is this what they mean by the breakdown of society?

We shudder reading C.S. Lewis’ description of the inhabitants of Sulva in That Hideous Strength—people who no longer live with each other, but make their contact through artificial bodies. We applaud Neo’s decision in The Matrix to leave the world of false peace for a world of real, albeit dangerous, human contact. We shake our heads at Jake Sully, who would rather live his life out in his avatar than in his human form. But are we really on the side of Ransom and Neo, or are we more like Jake and the Sulvans?

All forms of communication over a distance are inferior to face-to-face communication. Phone calls, letters, email—are all stopgaps until the moment when we can, hopefully, see our friends with our eyes and hear them with our ears and speak to them with our tongues. With most forms of communication we recognize this fact. The separated friends write because they cannot speak; the separated lovers talk over the phone because they cannot talk in person. There is difficulty in both writing and calling: without seeing the changes in expression, or hearing the intonations of the voice, it is far harder to converse. There is an inconvenience in these forms of communication, an imperfection, that keeps their users conscious of the fact that they really are stopgaps, and no more.

But Facebook? Facebook is convenient. Its status updates remove the need for any real conversation and its games remove the need for any mutual entertainment. You don’t have to go to your friends to find out who you are; the quiz will answer that question—and flatter you as a friend never can. In a relationship? It’s much easier to click that line than it is to tell your friends face to face—we’re dating—we’re courting—we’re—

Much easier, and much less human. Perhaps I am only another malcontented Facebook user after all!