The Facebook Happy Birthday [POLL]

Today is my birthday, and as I turn another year older and wiser, there is one thing that I notice that happens every year like clockwork. Starting right as the clock strikes 12, I get immersed in Facebook notifications of all the people wishing me a very Happy Birthday.

This is always an interesting experience to me. I cannot lie and say that it is not a good feeling to log on to my Facebook and find that I have 30 notifications of people writing on my wall waiting for me, but what is odd to me is some of the people who chose to wish me a Happy Birthday.

I appreciate it from family, close friends, and co-workers, but an eyebrow is always raised when I see a notification from someone who I haven’t talk to since they wrote on my wall to wish me a Happy Birthday last year. I’m talking about the people who when you read their name you have to go through their pictures to jog your memory on who they are. When it comes to people like this, I always have a hunch of what happened. They logged onto their Facebook, and in the top right corner they saw “Alex Dutton’s Birthday is Today.” Seeing this they decided to visit my page and drop me a quick note.

While I do appreciate the love, the question is, is it necessary? Do you find yourself wishing someone a Happy Birthday who you really don’t know? If you passed the same person on the street randomly, would you know it was their birthday without Facebook giving you the heads up?

I feel that this is very common, so I want to know how you feel when you are in this situation.