Hi, Im from Facebook.

I despise Facebook. This enormously successful business describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you". But hang on, why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks?

Does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with friends, we are merely sending little notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to our desks? Picture this: A kid spending a Saturday night at home alone on Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations.

Facebook appeals to a kind of vanity in us too. Put up a flattering picture of yourself, a list of your favourite things and voila, you can construct an artificial representation of who you are in order to get approval from your friends. It also encourages a disturbing competitiveness around friendship; it seems that with friends today, quality counts for nothing and quantity is king. The more friends you have, the better you are. You are "popular". Just check out the new Facebook magazine: "How To Double Your Friends List."

Now, don't get me started on people privacy. Do Facebook users ever actually read the privacy policy? If you read it, you will find that you actually don't have much privacy. Go ahead and view that profile page of your not-so-distant-friend and instantly 300 of your other friends are notified. And then yes, there's the smart Pepsi ads that target specific audiences who previously declared their love of the soda. It's making innocent Facebook users the target of marketing campaigns by collecting data about the users. The same data that is supposed to be used for finding people with similar interests.

This global cyber republic with a population of 59 million is essentially, a virtual country that has surpassed the population of our very own nation. At its current growth rate of 2 million immigrants per week, it won't be long until it will surpass China's.

So, have you repented yet? Do I still need to pry you away from that dreaded website? Or you still think you're not an online social networking site victim? Do yourself a favour. Retreat from the whole thing, remain as unplugged as possible, and spend the time you save by not going on Facebook doing something useful, such as reading books. Reconnect with nature. (Damn you air-cond!) And if you want to connect with the people around you, revert to an old piece of technology. It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking.