Facebook

Facebook (and other social networking sites) are promoted on the base of lovely virtues -- maintaining friendship, meeting new people, finding new interests, professional networking. Facebook's real virtues are FAR more interesting and beneficial than these, however. Here's how Facebook should advertise:

1. Watch your friends' faces spread! Especially after you haven't seen them for ten years. Then, compare them to your own face OR only upload photoshopped pictures of yourself.

2. Gawk at your friends' ugly children. Feel relieved that you didn't have your own.

3. Wonder if your friends actually have jobs, considering the vast number of postings and photos with which they populate their profiles. Rejoice that you are far superior. And busier. And better employed.

4. Waste time at work, particularly if you can make the argument that you have a responsibility to make social and professional connections as part of your job.

5. Waste more time at work inventing fascinating and suggestive things to enter as your status. Take breaks from actual work to record the fact that you're actually working.

6. Learn more about yourself by taking quizzes about your favorite activities, how much you resemble your astrological sign's profile, your favorite movies. Change your answers to ensure that you appear clever and mysterious.

7. Wrack your brain trying to remember who these people are who are trying to friend you. Regret friending people you actually dislike.

8. Count your number of friends. Check the number of friends your friends have. If they have more than you, wonder who has chosen not to friend you.

9. Invent alibis to prove that the drunk/stoned/partially-dressed person in the photograph that your friend uploaded is not you. Hope that Facebook has some kind of policy against naked photos.

10. Hate the people who have statuses like, "John just got off the airport in Paris!" "Susie is drinking mai tais in Hong Kong!" "Jennifer is spending her paycheck at Prada!" Pretend that they are faking, and are actually wasting time at work inventing fascinating and suggestive things to enter as their statuses.

Seriously, folks. You need more to do.