I spend a lot of time on facebook. When I say a lot, I mean hours. There are some days it feels like the majority of my time is spent there. A lot of it is for work. Really.  It is.

Facebook is a great tool that helps me stay in contact with hundreds of the kids I work with. It also keeps me in contact with my family and other friends. I’m a big fan.

Facebook has a feature that I am generally fond of–the like button. If someone posts something that you want to acknowledge, agree with, or show appreciation for, you can just click on the “like” button. It’s brilliant. You don’t have to try to be witty, thoughtful, or take a chance of being misunderstood. You can just “like” it.

The like button can also be used to show your support for businesses, organizations, or random statements such as, “If only mosquitoes sucked fat instead of blood.” (For the record, I clicked like for that one.)

Lately I’ve realized some people don’t know there’s much to facebook besides the like button. Sure, it takes a lot of room in my news feed, but if they want to like 183 things in an afternoon, it’s not really my problem. There are two other trends that make me scratch my head a little.

The first is related to the like button. There’s a campaign of sorts going around. It reads something like this–“Let’s start a Christian Revival on FB! Click “like” if you believe Jesus is Lord.” Really? What would a revival on facebook look like? Would the site be full of videos of people worshiping? Would every status update be a prayer or a mini-sermon? If I don’t click “like”, does that mean I don’t believe Jesus is Lord?

The second is the trend to have a theme for the week that requires you to declare your love and appreciation for someone or something in your life. Here’s a sample. “HUSBANDS WEEK: If you have a husband who makes your life interesting and fun, is your best friend . . . copy and paste this to your status . . . ”

It’s not just husbands. Apparently this is also a good way to appreciate your wife, brother, daughter, father-in-law, rabbit, dog, cat, dentist, first grade teacher, or your librarian. I don’t dispute that all of these are worthy of appreciation. I just wonder how appreciated anyone feels because someone copied and pasted.

I hope those I love and value know it because of things I say and do, not just because of something I’ve pasted to my status. I appreciate that it doesn’t hurt to let them know as many ways as possible. I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it differently.

Thanks for sticking with me through this little rant. If you liked it, feel free to copy it and paste it onto your status update.

image courtesy of SOCIALisBETTER