The declining value of birthday wishes

BIRTHDAY ALERT: Susan Orlean questions the value of birthday wishes in the age of Facebook.

It seems a little like cheating to have LinkedIn remind me of someone’s birthday. And yet, on my own birthday, which I like to celebrate with an absurd, childish amount of fanfare (October 31st, if you’d like to enter it in your calendar now), I accepted all the birthday wishes from strangers and friends that I knew full well had been triggered by a Facebook nudge. Is it Puritanical to think something has to require a lot of effort to be sincere? Because it’s easier these days to stay in touch, does it mean that staying in touch means less than it used to, when it took much more time and effort? Am I just ruing the fact that something that used to be distinctive about me is now a click away from being something everybody can do?