Facebook

I resisted Facebook for a while because I thought it was a tool for a much younger person. I made a halfhearted foray into the world of My Space, and quickly realized that was definitely a younger person’s tool. I figured FB was simply more of the same. Slowly though, my close friends were all jumping on the bandwagon, and not ever wanting to be one left out in the cold, I bowed to the peer pressure.

I’ve heard the argument that if you wanted to be in touch with someone you still would be, and there is a certain truth to that I suppose. However, even someone as hyper conscious as I of staying in touch, lost track of plenty of people over the last two decades, and not on purpose – in fact, almost never on purpose.

Life tends to get in the way. We follow wildly divergent paths, move, start families, take on adult responsibilities, and before you know it, 20 years have gone by. My generation had to satisfy ourselves with the phone or (gasp) letters to stay in touch, and I can truthfully say I knew only a handful of people who enjoyed corresponding by letter. Over the years, I came to really hate talking on the phone, so I pretty much dispensed with it as soon as e-mail came into vogue.

One friend tells me that if we had Facebook back then we’d never lose touch with anyone, and that this generation (and subsequent ones) are lucky to have it. I suppose that’s true. I guess it’s also harder to get rid of someone if they are friends with all your friends and can keep close tabs on you even if you delete them as a friend. In my experience, if you stop talking to person, it’s as though they ceased to exist, as if they just stopped.

And that’s the mind-blowing aspect of Facebook, for me at least – the realization that people didn’t just stop, that they aren’t frozen in my memory in 1985 or 1990 or 1995. They went on, and often lived lives I could never have predicted, or in some cases, predicted with uncanny accuracy.

Prior to my involvement with Facebook, I had the pleasure of reuniting with some old friends from my distant past, and it was like no time had passed. Now the floodgates have opened up in a way I simply wasn’t prepared to handle. So far, it’s been great – even if it’s just a quick, “hello” from a grammar school classmate or catching up with a friend from high school or college.

I’ve been so cognizant lately of the path my own life has taken, and retracing my steps from Point A to B to C, and so on. Now, this tool falls into my lap, and all of a sudden, I see everyone I know doing it, to one extent or another. The difference with me is I give all these thoughts a voice in this blog, but I can’t imagine others don’t think along the same lines.

In an instant, our entire lives are splashed across these pages, mostly in old photos (I have posted well over 100 already). Then, people old and new start commenting, lamenting old outfits and hairstyles, goofing on one another, and so on. I love seeing old photos, and am amazed by the courage some of my friends have had to post them! Of course, we tear them to shreds within 24 hours!

I have to admit Facebook has a certain addictive quality, whether it’s looking at people’s photos, finding new “old” people to befriend, or simply commenting on someone’s status, and updating your own. I never thought I would get so sucked in to this! I must admit using it as a tool to “promote” this blog as well! We writers have egos too!

These are just first impressions, really. It’s too soon to judge Facebook’s intrinsic worth, or whether it will “stick,” (with me, anyway). Talk to me again in six months. Now excuse me, I need to up my friend count!