Last week was my birthday, and I really enjoyed various birthday wishes I received from my Facebook Friends.  Even if 75% of them consisted of two words (which were “birthday” and “happy”), those 15 seconds of effort are still nice to read.   Before Facebook, when did the guy in your 10th grade Geometry class remember your birthday?

I decided to personally respond to each wish, which took longer than I anticipated.  I’ve noticed in recent months a lot of status updates like this on people’s birthday:  “Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes!”   One status update like that takes care of dozens of birthday wishes.   It’s so appropriate that on one day of the year an average person can feel like a celebrity.   On our birthday, we can be so overwhelmed by birthday wishes, that we can issue a Face Book “press release” through our status update to appease all our fans.  It’s like an added gift on our birth day.  For one day we are a celebrity.  So on your next birthday, don’t take for granted this new phenomena of social networking.  It may by our only chance at celebrity each year – the Facebook birthday wish!