If an alien landed on Earth and said, “Take me to your leader,” who would you take it to? Maybe President Barack Obama? Would there be some sort of United Nations conference, or maybe the alien would create a Facebook page and contact Mark Zuckerberg?

More than 500 million people are members of Facebook. That means if Facebook were a country, it would be the third-most populous country in the world. The United States would rank fourth.

Facebook recently announced a new messaging system. Through the new system, users can send a message from Facebook and it can be sent to the receiving person as a message, a text or an e-mail. All of these exchanges will be saved into one continuous conversation log.

Not too long ago, Facebook added “friendship” pages. Not only can you see every wall post, picture, mutual “like,” mutual friends and mutual events attended between you and a friend, you can also view the “friendship” between two people who are both your friend.

That means, depending on when people joined Facebook, the past four or five years of 500 million people’s lives are stored on the Facebook servers. Every picture, every event, every status update and every wall post is not to be forgotten.

This freaks me out a little bit. Maybe Facebook is just the champion of extreme scrapbooking.

Sometimes I log onto Facebook and feel like everyone has their own little digital shrine. Now there is a mutual shrine of all the Facebook activity that has ever occurred between you and your friends.

Soon, through this new messaging system, users will have the option of getting an @facebook.com address. [email protected]. I don’t want to be reluctant to change, but I do have some concerns.

Facebook is like a clingy, needy boyfriend who never gives you a chance to miss him. Remember when you would forget to develop a roll of film for months, and then you would look at the pictures and reminisce about whatever birthday party or wedding you had attended? Facebook has taken the nostalgia out of memories, because they’re stored on the Facebook servers so you can view them whenever you want.

Will people who have grown up with Facebook their entire lives ever know what it is like to not have a photo album on Facebook for every major and probably minor moment in their lives?

I Facebook-messaged Mark Zuckerberg to ask him what he would do if aliens wanted to speak to him, but he never responded. I’m sure he is busy backing up the files of the photos I took of my family on Thanksgiving that I promptly uploaded to Facebook. I’m getting concerned that Facebook and I have an unhealthy relationship.

Sometimes I want to break up with Facebook, but I always come back.