Facebook birthday wall posts: part 1/3

[Part 2: Who posted happy birthday on my wall?]
[Part 3: What did people write on my wall for my birthday?]

A real blogger recently reminded me (more on that in a future post) that when people decide to read a blog entry, they're not necessarily willing to give it 3 hours of their lives.  And so, O reader, I will try to make these musings short enough for one sitting.

So when a topic comes along about which I have a lot to say, I'll break it up into multiple entries.  And if facebook birthday wall posts isn't one of those topics, what is?!


Where we're going on this two-part tangent

Everyone who has bought into facebook (i.e. has a bunch of friends and stays pretty active with posts, comments, messages, etc.) gets bombarded on shis birthday with wall posts.  It's just the way of the world.

But have you ever really thought about what kind of bombardment your wall is enduring?  I had a birthday recently, and I decided the 121 birthday-related wall posts I got would be a large enough sample size to figure out exactly what happens to someone's wall on that special day.  And, in fact, I think it will do more than that -- it might tell me something about my own social network.

The questions I wanted to answer all fall into roughly 3 categories:

1. When did people post on my wall?
2. Who posted on my wall?
3. How/what did people post on my wall?

These questions will be the three parts of this Tangent Series.  I think the second and third are much more compelling, but I arbitrarily typed the three in the above order, and so we start with the questions of timing.  Would the biggest rush be right at midnight, or the 8am-ish start of most people's day?  Would the fact that my birthday was on a Friday eliminate most or all evening wall posts?


When did people post "Happy Birthday" on my wall?

The graph shows the concentration of birthday wall posts in hourly slots.  The hour listed on the x-axis is the beginning of that slot, so, for instance, "10am" means the hour from 10am to 11am.

There's nothing earth-shattering there, but I think it describes facebook usage trends.  A decent number of people are on facebook after midnight, and some of them like to jump on the instant birthday post train.

It's no surprise there's a lull in activity during sleep hours, and then BAM-- from 7am to 11am is the peak of wall post activity.  My best guess is that most people who write birthday wall posts (I'm notoriously not one of them) tend to do so the first time they log onto facebook in a given day.  A natural time to log onto facebook for the first time in a given day is 8 or 9am.

The only other thing I have to say is that, despite my birthday's Friday orientation, there were in fact some evening posts.  But notice the awesome "social life lull" from 8-10pm.  I guess 10pm is the time when people get back from whatever they're doing and hop onto facebook.

I know facebook is how I spend my Friday nights.

Next time: Who writes on one's wall? Friends, enemies, people whose names you don't even recognize?

For now, just let me know what you think of the graph, if you have any thoughts or observations.  Also, share what your facebook life is like -- when and how often do YOU log on?

Jon

Ayn Rand vs. Jesus of Nazareth

It's getting hard to remember now (soon I will step one year closer to "late twenties" -- ugh), but I was once young.  Once, back then, I read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.  I didn't read it because it was supposed to be extremely important to political and economic philosophy, and I certainly didn't read it to expose myself to its ubiquitous references to Rand's Objectivism. 

I read it because, like most things I did back then, my friend Brett recommended it.  That, and the art on the cover was ballin':

Seriously, that is some simple, elegant cover art.

Anyway, the book drew me in with its awesome characters.  In the years and books since, I've only come across a couple characters I've liked more than Atlas's Francisco d'Anconia or Ragnar Danneskjöld.  The former is a brilliant industrialist pretending to be a brainless playboy (sort of like Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins), and the latter is a pirate.  Yeah, a pirate.

Anyway, while the book is packed with Objectivism, Rand's personal philosphy of "rational self-interest," I mainly just wanted to see what would happen to the characters, and figure out who the heck John Galt was.  But later I would take more of an interest in ethics and morality and would realize the significance of Rand's thoughts.

And, from a Christian perspective, some of Rand's quotations about these topics can seem... well, literally the exact opposite of the Christian perspective.

Objectivism

Objectivism, or at least my understanding of it, rests entirely on the assertion that in every area of life, people should pursue their self-interest.  In determining what is, in fact, in their best interest, they should trust their rationality alone.  And thus, articles on this school of thought are always throwing around "rational self-interest."

In politics, Objectivism calls for an extremely small government and laissez-faire economic system.  [This best allows each individual to pursue shis rational self-interest.]

In religion, Objectivism calls for atheism, because God "isn't needed" to explain or decide things, only one's rational mind is.

And in ethics, Objectivism calls for selfishness.  Because self-interest is a person's greatest goal, selfishness is the best course of action and is, ironically, the Objectivist's greatest "virtue."

Ayn and Jesus

Christian ethics seems pretty distant from Rand's.  The greatest goal for the Christian isn't self-interest, but God's glory and comformity to His desires.

In terms of lifestyle, what brings God glory?  What are His desires for us?  According to Jesus: giving our possessions to those in need (Matthew 19), giving liberty to the oppressed (Luke 4), befriending the destitute (Luke 14), reconciling with those we've hurt (Matthew 5), praying for our enemies (Matthew 5), the Golden Rule (Matthew 7), etc.  In summary, we glorify God and live the way he wants largely by what we do for others.  The virtues of Objectivism, you'll recall, are those things we do for ourselves.

To make the contrast as stark as possible, I'll give a remark from each important figure:

"Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life."  Ayn Rand

"This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."  Jesus

From one side, "Don't sacrifice for others.  Seek your own happiness at all costs."  From the other, "Seek to help and better others' lives, even if this comes at great cost to you.  Were you to give up your very life for others, it would be the greatest possible act of love."

Pondering such extremes

I will mainly let you ponder these two polarities.  What's interesting to me is how two ideas of morality that function so oppositely could both have somewhat sizeable followings.  Usually when two people disagree on a moral issue, they agree on the values but differ on how to best preserve those values (e.g., pro-life and pro-choice supporters both agree on the value of human life and the freedom to decide about one's body). 

But the Christian and the Objectivist seem completely at odds about the very basic values that should guide our ethics.  Paul, one of the most important figures in the history of Christianity, wrote: "Consider others as more important than yourselves."

Yet, I recently listened to a Christian who specializes in Objectivism and he suggested that Rand was on the right track -- that we should naturally pursue our self-interest, but that the error lies in trusting our rational thought alone, to the exclusion of God, to determine what's in our interest.  In fact, this author contended, our greatest happiness, joy, and self-interest can be found only in relationship with God.  This is similar to John Piper's teachings on Christian hedonism.


Anyway, how do you think two opposite views of morality could both gain so much popularity?

Any other relevant thoughts, stories, ideas, jokes, video clips, memories, or questions?

Jon