A few days ago, a rumour circulated on the internet that Mark Zuckerberg was going to shut down Facebook on March 15 because it had taken over his life. I forwarded the news to all my friends and the result was pure mayhem. People whom I had not spoken to in months instantly wrote back with a startled message, asking if I was serious. Messages were sent back and forth in frenzy, until we found out that it was just a rumour.

Bottom line? Nearly every one of us is so addicted to this social network that we cannot even imagine our lives without it. This is how intrinsic a part Facebook plays in our lives, of course with the one thing that keeps people riveted – status updates. Everything from a dinner party last night to the subsequent food poisoning to how you feel about your co-workers is posted and available for reading in our news stream every single day. While some are witty and useful, most of them are just plain annoying.

So without further ado, here is my hash at ‘what-not-to-post’ as Facebook status updates and what constitutes as too much information.

Mission Statements: Today is the first day of the rest of your life or some other random musing. Sure, except the focus of your life seems to change every three days with a new status update. For instance, ‘I will not drink’ followed three days later by ‘I am so plastered’ – this is not in any way funny, it just happens to show the rest of us that your stability barometer is a little askew.

The ‘make-everyone-jealous’ update: We are all prone to doing this time to time. Everyone wants people to be jealous of who they are with or who they are going to be with or whom they got flowers from. But taking this to the next level is just over the top. For instance, ‘I am in Dubai’ is digestible but ‘I am dining at the Burj overlooking the Palm while considering my next real estate purchase” isn’t!

Inappropriate information: I get it, the narcissist in us wants to exhibit every little detail of our lives but there are still some rules of decency. You do not sit in a public place and start telling everyone and sundry, the private details such as your emotional state. Also, even though we pretend to be liberal at times, there are many of us who could do without knowing how much you lust after so and so and what that feels like.

The bait: A friend of mine does this often. Status updates like ‘I cannot believe what just happened’ may pique people’s interest the first few times. But what these people do not realise is that after about 20 such updates, people will just question your attention deficiency!

I am at work: Well guess what, so is the rest of the world. No one needs to be reminded about it. Why don’t you go ahead and broadcast your GPS coordinates to everyone as proof that you are somehow doing humanity a favour by earning a living. Working to earn a living is not something unique to just you, it is a necessity!

Political statements: Perhaps I am more than often guilty of this update. However, I do realise and acknowledge how silly it looks when I am dissing the political heavyweights or the leadership or the policies when the people concerned have no way of reading this.

Maybe if we all did care, we would try to make a difference instead of just logging onto Facebook and ranting about everything – it is not like we can do much with a press of a button in any case.

Haikus: Some people are such intellectuals, they post philosophical quandaries as their status updates. Funny thing is, they cannot explain what it actually means.

Mass ‘thank you updates’: When someone wishes you on your birthday even if it is on your Facebook wall, you need to reply back to them. If you are too lazy to do it individually, for your next birthday we will make a generic event instead of throwing you that surprise party you loved so much.

Activism updates: I get it, you are concerned about the state of affairs and you want to mobilise people through this medium. But have you ever wondered why only 20 people show up even though 379 promised to be there to rally for the cause at the press club? It is because they do not care about your cause, they just want to look like they do.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.