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Luc

I got bored today while I was listening to people on CNN argue over financial reform. Granted this, is important legislation- but I can only listen to so many court proceedings about securities and derivatives without my brains starting to hurt. I was also a little frustrated because I was watching the news to hear about the harsh new Arizona Immigration Law, or SB1070. You know the one that basically makes racial profiling not only legal, but required? Yeah that one. I was also looking to hear about the new developments in the Middle East peace talks (or lack thereof). Anyway, I digress. 

Where was I? Oh yes. I got bored. So, I did what every web-addicted person does when they have 2.5 spare seconds of time.. I went and checked my facebook account. As I was scrolling down my news feed I noticed that one of my friends had used an application called Status Analyzer. Basically, what this application does is analyze your status updates to see what you're most commonly used words are. I thought I would try it out. As I was using it I noticed the option to go “straight to world stats”. Curious, I clicked and was taken to a page containing a world map and a list of every facebook-using country in the world. Of course, being an American, I started by clicking on the USA. The top five most commonly used words in facebook statuses in the United States? Love, Time, Work, Home and Night, with “lol” making it into the top ten. 

 I was curious to see what was important to people in other countries, so I decided to click around the map a bit. I started with the UK. I don't know what I expected to be different. Maybe fish and chips somewhere in the top 20? The results- Love, Time, LOL, Night, Really. Well, I thought- the Brittish aren't really all that dissimilar from us. Maybe if I try Russia I'll get something interesting. Russian top Five: Love, Time, Happy, Really, People. By now I was really confused as to why there wasn't more of a cultural difference between these groups. I thought maybe it was because they were all basically, European. 

I decided to move into Asia. I skipped over to India- Love, Life, Happy, Time, People. Now I was really perplexed. Could we really all be this similar? As I started skipping around the globe I began to realize the results, were for the most part, uniform. I ended my Facebook world excursion in Afghanistan. By now I was pretty sure of what I what find. But still, I thought perhaps this, the place that is an epicenter of unrest and violence these past many years- would perhaps reflect that in its results. Afghanistan's top words? LOL, time, think, love, night, really, people, need, happy. 

 I cannot help but be humbled by the results of this mini-experiment. Think about the it. Almost every country in the world lists “love” as it's top word. The exception to this is the country's where the citizen's are in the midst of the most turmoil- their top word is “lol”. Aside from how amazingly pervasive the shorthand text lingo has become, this indicates that the people of the countries with the most to be angry or sad about are the most willing to laugh. An interesting thing to note is that the US is the only country in the world that lists “work” in it's top five list of words. That should tell you something about the US culture. We are obsessed with our careers and making money- much more than any other country in the world seems to be. The facebook people of every country all seem to care about the same things. Who or what they love. Their home, their family. Their plans for the evening. Sharing what makes them happy. Noting the swift and unrelentless passing of time. Other people.

 When it comes down to it- religion, race, country of origin, language, even culture- none of these things really matter. We are all united by our simple humanity. We live, we laugh, we love, we cry, we care for our family and friends and we try to make our mark in this brief piece of time that we occupy. And, of course, we all want to talk about what we did last night.

 Facebook is a great equalizer. We, the citizens of earth, may look, talk or worship differently. We may have different customs, traditions, and hobbies. We may disagree with each other's politics and laws. We may be differ in every single surface way possible. It doesn't matter. Deep down, we are all alike. We all update our facebook statuses the same.

Photo Via: Pardeshi