The Washington Post today has a hard-hitting, heart-rending story about a group of people who don’t have a voice in today’s American culture, who have to struggle every day just to get by in the modern world: young people who don’t use Facebook. These so-called “refuseniks” have to be cared for — nay, protected — by their Facebook-using friends. Like Natasha Hawkins, 28, a dancer. Listen to the acts of charity forced on her peers:
They labor to send e-mails to share photographs, reexplain personal news that has been publicized on a Facebook news feed and wonder whether she knows about upcoming auditions or performances of other companies.
One woman interviewed for this article was so ashamed that she refused to give her name out of shame at not being a part of Facebook (well, she claimed it was because she was a private person, but what does that even mean?). The tone of the Post’s article is only a little tut-tutting to these people, who should probably just man up and join to make it easier for us all to go look at what they look like and giggle. Only a little, that is, until this part:
Pew researchers point to a new but very small study they conducted to show that resisters and adopters 18 to 29 have demographic differences: Social networkers are more likely to have an annual income of $75,000 or more, and nonusers are more likely to have only a high school education.
Wow, if you don’t belong to Facebook, not only are you a pain in the ass to your friends, but you are poor and undereducated. Does the hardship never end?
