Facebook and tribal chatter

It doesn't take long for us older members of the human race to get terminally bored with Facebook.  Facebook is a storehouse for the relentlessly and shamelessly trivial.  The level of intellectual content could hardly be lower.  Hours on end (literally) sending pictures of uninteresting activities by people who can only be thought interesting by close friends and families...  and talking about recipes and where you ate lunch and what you had to eat and the funny thing your son said and a really nice picture of your cat or of yourself and where you might meet to find a mate (temporary or permanent) and ... and...  So why do the younger primates (and you know who you are) find it so endlessly fascinating? 

Back when our ancestors lived in trees (and I'm old enough to almost remember that) I imagine the level of chatter between treetops in the evening covered much of the same subject matter.  A lot of it was about the same things talked about on Facebook now.  We told each other about food and good water and interesting potential sexual partners.  An important element of every message was simply "Here I am!  Don't forget about me!  I'm in the pack!"  It was probably an expression of our need to keep our tribal bonds intact and strong.  We talked because we needed to feel contact and to know we belonged.  Facebook is just another expression of the endless urge to "connect" constantly with our tribe.

So now I'm in the same tribal position as the "silverback".  Too old to win mating battles and bored with the endless mindless chatter of "Here I am!  Look at me!", no longer interested in dominating our tribe or expanding our boundaries, I wander off into the jungle looking for more interesting things to do.  All that talk was once interesting, but now I'd rather go look for an unusual rock or maybe even a mountain. And I'll just sit there and enjoy the silence.