This past Tuesday, I turned 21. Woohoo! But, this blog post isn’t my plea for more birthday wishes. I can assure you that my slew of loving Facebook friends took care of that. The real meat here is how Facebook is starting to change the dynamic of birthday wishes. It even feels odd typing that, but it’s true.
As much as I’d like to play it off like all of these wall posts are not that big of a deal, they really are! Who doesn’t love a little extra attention on their special day? The fact that the wall post is public serves two purposes, if you think about it, the sender and receiver both win. The birthday boy/girl is seen as a person who is cared about and gets birthday wishes. The friend who writes on their wall is seen as a caring person who sends happy birthdays. That’s a win-win in my book!
There are even discussions I found talking about the expectation of responding to your friends who wish you a happy birthday. Take this thread on Yahoo Answers as an example. Personally, I responded to every person who wrote me. That’s just my two cents, but I think that I can devote 10 seconds of my time to respond with a “Thanks dude!” since they took time out of their day to think of me.
So, let’s crunch some numbers here. These are the birthday wish figures for this fiscal year for me. Looks like Facebook is the obvious choice for my friends.
I find it interesting that people go that far to seek advice on a matter such as this, which can tell us one thing: Facebook happy birthdays are that important. My prediction is that this trend will only grow in popularity, just as quickly as Facebook has been growing. It’s convenient, quick and still personal. So, before your birthday comes around this year, be sure to prepare yourself (and your Facebook wall) for some birthday love. You know you like it!
