Quiz Overload

Wait a second... I've used this one before, haven't I?

Before we start, I’d like to point out that it’s Mother’s Day. This was a holiday more or less created by Hallmark, which is why I’ve opted not to get you anything, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!

So, anyway.

Facebook is a work in progress. When I first joined Facebook three years ago, there weren’t notes or status updates. Over the next couple of years, they added those features, and for a brief and glorious time everything was perfect. It completely trumped MySpace because of its clean layout and lack of customizability, and on any given day there were probably one or two fewer pedophiles as well. Facebook, like the Titanic, was soaring to new heights every day. Unfortunately, then it hit an iceberg, which ignited its hydrogen and caused it to explode and sink.

Yes, they added Applications, their reasoning being that Facebook was already just a bunch of bored kids poking each other, so why not just crank up the lame and throw in some Star Wars trivia? And all of a sudden, Facebook was basically MySpace with a slightly better layout, and eventually they changed that, too. I even wrote an early blog update about it, so you know it had to be important.

Now they change Facebook more often than I change my underwear – I mean, there’s been like two updates in the last year, already. Yes, like I said, Facebook is a work in progress, only it seems like the only real work they’re doing is seeing how much more confusing they can make the interface before they drive away all their users – it’ll probably take some time, since at this point it has some 200 million users who have forgotten how to make friends in real life.

The newest layout really causes problems for me because it assumes that I like my friends a lot more than I actually do. Sure, I’ll feign interest when they talk about the many career opportunities for a dance major or let them drive me to the airport from time to time, but my news feed now notifies me of every status update, upcoming birthdays far into the foreseeable future, and all the most recent pictures they’ve posted. All told, this is far too much exposure to the human world for me. Somehow I’ve accumulated over 500 friends, and looking at my news feed is sort of like getting raped in the face by all of their personalities at once, and most of the time it isn’t pleasant.

What’s worst about the layout, though, is that it has now decided that I give a shit about the quizzes that my friends are taking. Interestingly enough, I don’t. I actually feel that taking online quizzes should be a sneaky, shameful activity that one partakes in secretly, behind closed doors, and never tells anyone about. Why, again, do we need a computer to give us arbitrary information about ourselves? In high school, I took a career aptitude test, after which the computer told me that the US Army had sponsored the test and that, interestingly enough, my ideal job in life would be an artillery officer in the US Army. I didn’t take those test results seriously, much less plaster them all over the Internet for everyone to see. Well, that is, until now. But, see, it’s different, because… Blog… Something…

Look, the point is, Facebook has begun to share every one of my friends’ test based personal revelations with me. For example, in looking at my news feed today I discovered that one of my friends’ maternity clocks had gone off, as she had taken the Should I Get Married quiz (result: YES!! GO FOR IT!), the What Kind of Parent Would I Be quiz (result: Perfect!) and the How Many Children Will I Have Quiz (result: Three girls). Before long, she’ll be taking the Am I Pregnant test, and her boyfriend will be taking the Holy Shit Is It Mine Please Don’t Let It Be Mine Oh Shit Oh Shit test. Facebook has now begun to fill the place of overbearing mothers everywhere by urging users to get married on a whim and start cranking out kids, preferably three girls, so as not to prove it wrong.

The problem with these quizzes, besides the fact that they clutter up my Facebook and I don’t give two shits about them, is that they seem to give uniformly good results. I doubt many people have taken the What Kind of Parent Would I Be quiz and scored in the “Crack Whore” percentile, save for perhaps actual crack whores, but if that were the case then they’d already know what kind of parent they were.

I’d urge all of you to stop taking these little Facebook personality tests, but it seems as though there’s some sort of instinctual human urge to put facts about yourself into a computer and see what happens – that is the principle that Facebook was founded on, and it would be a shame for us to turn our backs on it now.

Truman Capps doesn't like the new Facebook, but he won't join your goddamn protest group, already.