We are talking about children, but this also goes for adults. Facebook is a magical thing. It beckons so many people and it pulls them like magnet. This of course happens with internet in general, but the latter is impersonal. Facebook, together with all the other so called social networks, is personal, refers to the person, to the face, our face and that of others.

Really, where does its magic come from? This overpowering attraction that it provokes in us? This attraction that often enough makes us to desire more and more the face of a known or unknown person, and much less a personal meeting with him on real life? Why is it that the virtual face is often much more interesting than the real face? Enchanting?

The magic of Facebook reminds me of the magic that a toy has for the little child. It absorbs you in the same way, it detains you and drugs you. Let’s take a doll as an example. Barbie. The little girl, changes dresses for her, it puts her in several stories with Skipper, her sister, with her friend Ken, and with so many others. If it happens she may also pull her hair out, tear her arms and legs, will bang her against the opposite wall.

Barbie, never says “NO”. It doesn’t have any preference, will, or essence. Without hesitation, without confrontation and complaining allows the little girl to do what she wants with her, to place her in whatever scenario, based on fantasies or dreams, to adore her and to destroy her. At this point Barbie has something in common with the ball – so that we don’t forget about boys. The ball is round, the “round goddess”. In the shoot, whether it happens with the foot in football, or the hand in basketball, the ball heads for the direction that the hand or foot has thrown it. Its orbit is an exact extension of the shooter. A stone wouldn’t react like that. Its uneven surface would have made her for sure to vary the player’s intention, to go wherever it would like. That’s why the stone is not a toy.

I started off talking about the magic of Facebook. I compared it to the magic of the toy – of Barbie and the ball. But, one would say Barbie and the ball are toys, in Facebook there are faces! Real, alive people! Is it like that? Let’s see it in the example of the girl that when she was a child she was playing with Barbie. Let’s call the girl “Ann”, she reached her puberty and on her own, or with the help of her parents, she signed in to Facebook, much earlier than the officially permissible age of 16.

Now Ann has a face. Let’s call it from Face and Ann, “FAnn”. Is the person and the face, the real Ann and the virtual Ann, the same? No! The computer’s screen, or that of the tablet or the mobile is like a mirror and Ann sees her reflection there - which now is FAnn.

And in contrast to the mirror, that presents Ann with her reflection, the screen asks from her to construct her reflection, FAnn, to set her up as she likes. With FAnn she can play, she can do whatever she was doing when she was little with her Barbie. She creates a profile for her, with photos, interests, information. And nothing stops her from changing her and making her a different person – sorry, a different face. The magic of a childish toy returns with the game of faces!

In FAnn’s life everything is easy, relaxed, cool. In the same way that Barbie never said no, in FAnn’s world the negation of another person, the no-more and the not-yet of time, the limits put by reality, are non-existent. For example:

- Anna has one, two, or three friends, friendships that took a long time to be built, which go through difficult and beautiful moments, good and bad times, happy and sad times, anger and disappointment. In school, she has to face people that she may not like; she has to put up with this or the other person. FAnn acquires numerous “friends” literally from one day to the next, two, three, five-hundred. And if someone is not satisfying to her anymore she can “unfriend” him/her, with just one click.

- She doesn’t need to make special arrangements, or preparations, i.e. make-up, dressing, in order to meet with her friends. She can seat in front of the computer screen wearing her pajamas and without having washed her face. She doesn’t need to have had a bath beforehand. Facebook doesn’t care for sweat and perfume. FAnn is odorless…

- FAnn has no secrets. She is what she shows. If she had a home that would be a showcase, lightened in such way as to leave no shadowy corners, meaning no implications and context. She will not look at a boy with any special meaning, inviting him to move on. She will not say to her best friend “Oh! How lovely you are!” and in her tone sounding like “Bitch, I will kill you!”. When talking loses its implications and context then it becomes – chat.

- FAnn is neither graceful nor ungraceful. She doesn’t have an aura that would add another dimension to her existence, like an extra speaker that makes surround sound. So, how would you ever fall in love with her? She doesn’t know from that stuff! She only has one string to be touched and then by reflex she will raise her thumb: like!