The Psychology of Facebook

"Half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew,..."  -Mrs. Dalloway, 10.

I've sensed a change in how people use Facebook, recently.  The first couple years, Facebook was full of status updates, game requests, nauseating wall posts, and relationship status hell.  Basically, everyone used Facebook to its fullest and didn't really give a damn what anyone else thought of what "it's complicated" really meant.

Now, gamers hide their obsessions behind protected wall posts, relationship statuses are hidden or completely vague, and the only people who update their statuses are the people whose lives are hardest.  *Cough*.  It seems that Facebook concepts have been broken down to the point of saying nothing is saying something the loudest.  Here are a few examples.

Not posting your relationship status.

I am guilty of this.  Nathan and I didn't post our relationship to Facebook right away.  We are not going to post changes in our relationship to Facebook right away.  We are doing this because we want people to find out about our lives naturally, instead of 600 friends and stalkers finding out how big my diamond is via profile picture.
Some people choose to remove their relationship status completely off of Facebook, sending the, "my personal life is none of your business," message.  Now that hot guy is no longer "single" or "in a relationship," he is mysterious, which creates a greater sense of attraction and frustration for the shy stalkers.

The hibernation of status updates. 

Nobody who is anybody updates their status anymore.  I could list about five different people that I know who still regularly update their status, and the majority of them are, "Ugh!  Today I have to mow the lawn AND do laundry!  My life sucks."  Or, "She is so going to be sorry for that thing she said to him last night at the place." (Also known as the trying-to-provoke-questioning-comments-statuses).
The people who still update their Facebook statuses three times a day are trying to create the illusion that their lives are busy ("Work, haircut, then back to work!  I love life, lol.") but inadvertently make it look like they're lazy computer bums.  The "new" way to show that your life is busy is by not showing it.

Photo Teasers.

Instead of posting thousands of pictures of you making twelve different poses in front of the Eiffel Tower to indicate your recent abroad experience, cool Facebook users now rely on the one photo they upload to use as their profile picture to provoke conversation and question.  Example: April went to Japan.  Instead of uploading a shmillion pictures to an album entitled, "KONNICHIWAAAAAAA!!!!" and tagging herself in all of them in order to explode her friends' news feeds, the nonchalant Facebook user will upload one, slightly off-colored photo of themselves, giving minor reference to their location.  A temple in the background.  Some Japanese characters in the far-left corner of the image.  Now, much more interest is provoked.  "Japan?  I didn't know she went to Japan.  She never said anything about that, how cool and mysterious..." they will say.

Anywhoosle, this is just an observation I've made.  Now you can all keep up with the latest Facebook trends.  Remember: less is more!