Facebook Birthdays

This is another wordy post about yet another phenomenon which I've observed. So if you don't like wordy posts, au revoir.

So, this year was my first year 'officially' using Facebook. I've been in army the past 2 years, and before that Facebook wasn't as popular yet. (maybe it was I was (am) just never into Facebook)
Then when I came out of army, just for fun, I decided to use FB more, uploaded photos, posted on walls, added more friends, etc

Thus, this year was my first ever 'Facebook Birthday'. Let me explain what this is.

A 'Facebook Birthday' is when it is, of course, your birthday, and people wish you on Facebook. Now, because of the feature 'News Feed' in FB when recent news is randomly updated on everyone's pages, people(especially those FB fanatics who refresh page every minute) tend to find out about your birthday because of this.

So the effect is as such:

1) You have either
A) a couple of friends who really remember when your birthday is
B) Some random friends who noted your birthday on your profile page and realised it was coming
C) Whatever type of friend, the point is that they really remember your birthday.

One thing to note is that Facebook does not have birthday reminders.. I think? Unlike Friendster which annoyingly sends you an email when someone's birthday is nearing. Well, maybe it is helpful for some people but I find it annoying.

Ok so these people will post on your wall and wish you 'Happy Birthday!'.

2) Other people will see their posts in their News Feed, and infer that it is your birthday. Now, the 'natural' reaction is to go over to their wall and also post a well wish of happy birthday. I mean, it just takes a few seconds to do so, why not?

3) Step 2 repeats until your birthday ends. Heck, it may even continue the next day when people who didn't log on to FB the previous day sees the News Feed and wish you 'happy belated!' instead.


Now, the odd thing is that, of those people that wished me, the proportions were like this:
10% people i have never spoke to in my life (like, friend's friend so they add me. i don't usually add people)
70% people I haven't spoken to for about 3-5 years.
20% actual friends/acquaintances

The first 10% was the group that really confused me. I have never ever spoken to them and they were wishing me heartily like I was some good friend of theirs. Isn't that just really weird?

Can you imagine you are at a restaurant, then suddenly the next table breaks out in a birthday song. Then after your dinner you walk over to the birthday boy and say 'HEY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!'
Weird to the max.

You may argue that in this case the person is an entire stranger, while in my case the people were 2nd/3rd degree friends. But you forget the law of '7 degrees of separation'. (There are no 2 people in the world who cannot be connected by 7 or less people) So it's very likely that person at the restaurant is your cousin's friend's brother. Or your teacher's son's friend. Or even your neighbour's classmate.

So my theory of 'Facebook Birthday' is this -

Your Facebook Birthday is the day in which (all sorts of) people will wish you happy birthday, regardless of whether they know you or know when your birthday is.

Am I the only one to see the artificiality here?

In the past, you would have to write a card and mail it a day earlier. Maybe if it was a good friend you would call him/her up to personally wish him. Heck, even more recently, you would send an SMS to wish him happy birthday.
Even before that, you would have to circle birthdays on your personal organizer or calendar.
Maybe rely on your superb prospective memory to remember birthdays (which I'm terrifail at)

Now? Just wait for your FB news feed to update you on someone's birthday and just pop over to type a one liner, taking all of 10 seconds.

There is almost no sentiment attached, no value at all. Are we becoming robots?

Ok you may be cursing me in your mind, going 'walao this alan, people wish him he still complain so much, next time don't wish him anymore'. If you are really this narrowminded and can't see my point... fine, don't wish me anymore.


SO I want to propose a fun experiment to test this theory. I need a group of, say, 10 people? Maybe less, just about 5-6?
So one person will volunteer to be the 'facebook birthday boy/girl'. This person's birthday needs to be at least 4-6 months away/ago so that it is not recent enough to be remembered. And he/she also cannot display his birthday on his FB profile page.

What happens is, the whole group will then post on this person's wall at a chosen day, and wish him/her 'Happy Birthday' when it is NOT him/her birthday.

Then, sit back, and see if the Facebook Birthday effect kicks in.

I would be very interested to see the results of this experiment. Any volunteers? :D