I don’t know if it is happening to everyone, but I am experiencing an acceleration of interest in connecting to people via Facebook. My Facebook account had been quite dormant for the past several months, but a few weeks ago, I noticed a definite uptick in the number of people who were requesting to connect as “Facebook friends.” The rate of requests is up to at least one per day.

I have been a long time participant in the LinkedIn social network. I have 581 LinkedIn connections at last count. But to call LinkedIn “social” is a bit of a stretch. It is a large and useful network of business and technical people, but the personality of each participant is largely hidden, and the LinkedIn application really doesn’t foster social interaction.

On the other hand, my recent experience with Facebook is quite the contrary – it is very social. The varied personalities of different facebook participants really shine through. I find it fascinating to see which plug-in applications differnt people choose and which users add photos and other information that reveals attributes of their unique identities.

From a personality standpoint, it appears that I am a virtual stick-in-the-mud compared to many facebook users. Yet the rich Facebook user interface reveals some of the things I like just because of what applications I have chosen and which friends I am connected to. I find it facscinating, perhaps addicting, to explore Facebook and the people who subscribe.

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