City
500,000+ Torontonians Addicted to Crack
Hi everyone, my name is Ryan C., and I'm an addict.
I haven't been one for very long. In fact, most of my friends were addicts long before I ever got into it. I'd resisted the temptation for months, instead drowning myself in other substances.
But MySpace has nothing on this, like a sweet, sweet burn of sun and summer wind, and it, my friend, my new thing. Facebook has become much more than a summer fling.
--
Going by Facebook network associations, Toronto has more users than any other city in the world, beating out New York City, which has a population of almost 19 million people compared to Toronto's 5 million, by almost 300,000 users.
What this means is that there are half a million people in Toronto who are currently poking their way through their days instead of working, studying, or feeding their elderly relatives.
And blogTO is by no means immune to this crack masquerading as social networking. If you have a Facebook account (don't lie) then be sure to join the blogTO Facebook group.
While you're at it, join my personal crusade to poke Belinda Stronach as much as possible. She pokes back, frequently, and once she does you can join this group, one so awesome that it's second only to blogTO's.
BTW, if you can't access any of the links, it's cuz you don't have an account, which means you are teh suxxor.
Found by Sameer and Tanja on Ryan Feeley's blog. Photo by Manfus as posted to the blogTO Flickr Pool
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There is such a hideous dogma about the entire, evil Facebook regime. I never knew that it was possible to lose friends, and miss out on important events and gatherings JUST BECAUSE one does not possess a silly account at another tedious online service.
Yesterday I found myself completely out of the loop when my friends called me up and asked me if I was to be showing at the vegan dinner meet-up at vegan-friendly Chinatown establishment, Bo De Duyen. When I voiced my surprise and ignorance of said gathering, I was told that "it's because you don't have facebook". In this sense, it would appear that Facebook is a whole new form of clique-- a cyber-clique. There are those who possess it-- and the others.
Those who do not have a facebook will either assimilate or be destroyed/left behind. It would seem that a whole new era of bullying is afoot.
Fight the Facecrack power, Toronto. Fight it. A year from now it'll just be another one of those fads we tell internet newbies about, like ICQ and Geocities.
(Also, I know a lot of people are still accessing my links through <a href="http://vasta.typepad.com";>my old site, but they're all up on <a href="http://eloquation.com";>my new site</a> too!)
However, I am wary of saying that New York has 19 million people or that Toronto has 5. Having lived in the New York metropolitan area for most of my life, I would still use the Long Island network, not New York.
You see, the New York networks are divided into borough, even though the city proper (which has 8.2 million people btw) is geographically the same size as Toronto proper (~2.7 million) in square miles. Has anybody bothered to add up the Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island networks? "New York, NY" on Facebook refers specifically to Manhattan.
I can't actually find any of these other networks. I type in manhattan and it automatically selects manhattan high schools. You can see the available facebook networks in the USA over here: http://www.facebook.com/networks/networks.php
I try typing in Long Island, I can't get a Long Island city network. Queens, Bronx, same thing. Not calling you a liar or anything, I just can't find any of these networks to add up. And it shouldn't be any harder to find a network than typing it in and clicking "search". There are lots of associated networks, like Long Island colleges or whatever, though.
Good post on the Toronto frenxy to Facebook. In deference to Kevin hanging out in New York, there really is no city that stacks up to Toronto - essentially 1 in 10 are Facebook addicted (the NY stuff is a Red Herring - even if you combine New York and Nassau County, your dealing with significantly less incidence than Toronto).
I came up with my own reasons on why Toronto leads the Facebook world on post eerily similar last week. Check it out...
http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/2007/04/facebook_toront.html
And, lol, Canadian Tire in Quebec is Pneus Expert. Sound that out phonetically and tell me your inner 10 year old doesn't take over.
Lol at that "Why do I Love You" post as well. Guess ya didn't have anything better to do for the 3 hours it took to write that out eh?
Also, nearly every one of those New Jersey networks is within the New York metro area; the only one that isn't is "South Jersey".
This, while none of the other Ontario networks are within the GTA, so we are comparing slightly different things.
I am confident Toronto's Facebook network is bigger, but I just hate it when cities' populations are measured by their metropolitan area, when most of it isn't urban in character at all!
Funny Amil & I were just talking about it at the end of our last Arts Now blogTO podcast. It must be an epidemic.
I'm not sure why you guys are so uptight about Facebook, it's just a website. It happens to be the only website that has actually accomplished its social networking goals, so everyone uses it to plan everything now and get in touch with everyone. Users know pretty much everyone can be found and later reached through facebook. I don't get the people who obsessively hold out on not joining, but I don't really care either.
They're just deciding not to utilize one of the best networking tools in the entirety of human history. And the result is that they are going to lose out on all the benefits that come with networking. Don't use job search sites and no employers searching there are gonna find your resume... that doesn't qualify as some attack on you, it's your choice not to take advantage of the incredible technology that is being made available these days.
Like people who angrily insist they hate cell phones and will never get one... It's like, okay, that's fine, but don't expect me to be able to get in touch with you. (And while you're at it, stop asking to 'see' my cell phone, people!)
...or another example, 10-15 years ago and barely getting online, you could've been determined to remain a WWW-only user, and refused adamantly to join "this god damned 'e-mail' cult" just to have to get in touch with people when they can perfectly well walk to your house.
...or from e-mail, "this damn icq/msn/aim cult!"
...or from grunting, "this damn speaking in words cult!"
I do like it for the picture albums and events, especially when those two are combined.
Hoboken / Jersey City, NJ 6,000
Jersey Shore, NJ 17,000
Newark, NJ 11,000
North Jersey, NJ 40,000
Trenton / Princeton, NJ 8,000
Equals: 110,000
plus
Nassau County, NY 22,000
Suffolk County, NY 17,000
Equals: 149,000
plus New York's 208,000
equals: Toronto still kicking all their asses <b>combined</b>.
Metro areas versus urban areas or not, a lot of people are choosing to ID themselves as torontonians. Who's to say they aren't?