An amusement

One of the more... interesting uses of social networking.

1) Take your birthday on facebook.

2) Change it to a date early in the next month.

3) Let people congratulate you for your survival of a year

4) Change it again to a date later in the month

5) Let people congratulate you for your survival of a year

6) Change it again to another date still in the same month

7) Let people congratulate you for your survival of a year

Get the impression that a lot of our social conventions are useless signals rather than genuine concern or affections? To be sure if you have fewer friends or more observant people, or people who know you more certainly, this is less effective (I imagine). But there are plenty of people who are routinely engaged in useless demonstrations like saying happy birthday, sometimes even in very involved thought out notes, to whoever seems to have aged. And thus the spectacle and ceremony precedes in importance the event itself so that they, the party responding to the event rather than the source of the event itself, can be thought of in higher esteem.