The Pokemon Facebook Phenomena

Okay, so I left it up to you, my readers, and you voted that I shouldn't cut my hair--That makes it sound like I'm trying to make my life into some kind of reality TV show. But don't worry that's as close to American Idol as this blog will come--Not cutting my hair was the easiest thing to do anyway, because it requires me to do nothing about my growing hair, which is as much as I was doing in the first place.

After talking with my roommates the other night I realized that I enjoy getting on Facebook for the same reason I liked playing Pokemon on Game Boy when I was younger. Well, before I elaborate too much I should make a disclaimer: I honestly think of Facebook as a very fancy electronic virtual address book. It's comforting to know that if I wanted to get a hold of someone, or a group of people, I could quickly and effectively get a hold of them through Facebook. That being said, I enjoy getting on Facebook and adding people I haven't seen in 5 years that I once hung out with or having someone add me that I had lost contact with. It's almost addicting trying to see how many friends I can find on Facebook. To use the Pokemon motto, I "gotta catch 'em all." For anyone who played Pokemon I'm sure this will make perfect sense. You've got to find and catch all the Pokemon, especially the rare and exotic ones, but even the ones that aren't rare you still catch (even if it's just to say that you've caught it and that's all). Part of the game is finding and catching all the types of Pokemon, and there's something strangely satisfying about collecting them. However, you don't train and fight all your Pokemon, only a select few would I ever use and carry around in the game. But if I wanted to use them I had them on hand because I had already found them.
Hopefully you can see the parallel I'm going for with that. I don't collect friends on Facebook like it's a game, but I do check my Facebook profile with the same satisfaction that I experienced while collecting Pokemon back in the day.