I spend an inordinate amount of time on the computer of late, or at least that’s the way it seems to me. I guess I have, even in this advanced stage of life, become a citizen of the cyber world. It is, on the whole, a satisfying experience. I’ve learned more about more subjects than I ever thought possible. I’ve come to understand the faith, the circumstance, as well as the hopes and aspirations of a wide variety of persons around the world. How vividly I remember the invasion of Iraq. I sat on my sofa watching the story unfold through the filter of American television, while on my computer screen another description of what was happening was being provided me by a young girl looking out her bedroom window in Iraq. The internet is an amazing thing. It will revolutionize the world. It will bring us closer together and will open lines of communication between diverse peoples who otherwise would remain strangers. There are problems with the internet, however. A little while back I received another invitation from someone with whom I barely am an acquaintance. She was inviting me to be her Facebook friend. I’m a bit amazed she would want me to be her “friend.” After all, our relationship has been really limited. And, in fact, it consists of her sending me forwarded emails every few days, most of which I delete without reading. One danger of the internet is to provide a false sense of community. Let’s be delicate here. If your relationship with me is confined to forwarding emails that someone else wrote rather than to write me to inquire about my life and our commonality then we are not friends. My friends are the ones who ask, “Guy, how are you doing?” or “Guy, what’s up?” Lately on Facebook this false sense of community has resulted in a new phenomenon. Many of the participants of Facebook are sending notes to their “friends” called “Twenty-five Things.” The notes are the means of sharing twenty-five random things about themselves they would not mind the world knowing about. The list consist of things such as one’s favorite brand of peanut butter, one’s favorite color, whether one ties their shoes from the left to the right or the right to the left. These notes get forwarded to “friends” who forward them to their “friends” like the chain letter of my generation. I’m told that the object is for people to learn about themselves as they share themselves with their “friends.” Huh? I realize that as much as I enjoy being a participant in the cyber world, I am fully aware it is a product of the baby-boomer generation. I suppose technically I qualify for that generation, but the word generation covers a lot of years. Truth be told, I’m on the fizzle end of that generation not the sizzle. Consequently, I’m not relating to a lot of this Facebook stuff. The truth is, if the person who invited me to be her Facebook friend were really my friend she should have noticed sometime over the years what kind of Peanut Butter I eat. If I need to tell you my favorite color is blue in order to get your attention, well, that’s a shame. But were you my friend you would already have noticed. I’m not going to be her Facebook Friend. I have a list of twenty-five reasons.