Let me tell you three things I’ve done this past week:

1) Stopped eating sugar (mostly)
2) Started exercising again (for the first time in… let’s not talk about it)
3) Got my oil changed and tires rotated (6 months overdue)

Now, let me tell you why: Guilt and Peer Pressure from… Facebook.

Facebook and similar networking sites (Myspace, Twitter, etc.), have created something never before experienced in human history: Widespread, international, constant communication.

I can talk to friends, family, schoolmates, workmates, former neighbors, celebrities, and even my local cashier clerk at the grocery store. I can choose whose lives I get updates on, and see exactly what they’re doing approximately two –if not more- times a day.

Now, guess what my friends are doing lately:

1) Eating right
2) Exercising
3) Being responsible.

Compare that list to the list above. Positive Peer Pressure inspired me to get out there and do what I was supposed to be doing all along. Seeing my friends’ constant tweets and status updates about the fun and healthy things they are doing makes me want to do them too.

This is why I think Facebook is going to change this generation. For the first time we can tell each other what we’re doing at any given moment –and the pressure’s on.

I’ve been watching my former classmates out globetrotting and doing some amazingly wonderful things (volunteering, getting their degrees, getting married, starting businesses, ministering in foreign countries, staging protests, etc.), and sometimes I feel a little bad for not participating in the world to my maximum capabilities. If everyone’s out being fabulous, what am I do sitting at home with my fiancé on a Friday night (except homework and surfing the internet)?

Of course, while you can use Facebook as a tool to stay connected, get inspired, or just entertain yourself, like everything it can also have negative consequences. It goes with the old saying, ‘If you hang out with a bad crowd, you will be like them.’

Remember, on Twitter and Facebook you can choose who to hear from. On Facebook, you can friend someone, but then remove their updates from your feed so that you never actually see their statuses. I used this feature to block out people I wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about, and those who were constantly negative or, worst of all, boring. Those who are left provide me with a constant chatter about the involvement, commitment, and joy in their daily lives.

It’s the same with Twitter. On my personal one, you’re welcome to follow me, but I’ll only follow you back if I a) know you or b) think you are interesting and relevant to my life. The independent artist from San Francisco who just wrote a rant about frogs? Follow back! The realtor dishing on all the gossip about local developments and construction? Eh, not for me.

Tonight I’m going to go home, exercise, eat some low-carb dinner and then study for my no-deadlines summer Biology class (If I don’t keep myself on schedule, no one will). You know what my friends are probably doing?

The same thing.

So, what do you think? Am I right or crazy? (Those are the only two choices.)