Despite the admonitions of multiple interns that Facebook is what all the cool kids are doing, I obstinately refused to give in and get on the social media freight train. Instead, I declared myself "anti-social media" and shunned Twitter and MySpace with equal disdain, puttering along in my antiquated Yahoo e-mail haven. I might as well have been using smoke signals according to Generation Online. E-mail? Totally outmoded.I insisted that I didn't want people to find me and friend me. I argued that Facebook represents the breakdown of real communication - a dot-com bubble between people and real conversations. The fundamental goal of collecting "friends" felt disingenuous to me.
But then, the office kept buzzing with the social media revolution. The interns kept pressing. And lo and behold, my boss was on it already. I knew that I'd been beat and promptly waved the white flag of surrender and followed it with the blue flag of Facebook.
Since my debut on the social networking site, I've been proven unequivocably wrong. In one short week, it has allowed me to do the following:
* Reconnect with a long-lost friend of many years. We're having dinner tonight.
* Join up with fellow thespians from the Berry College Theater Department
* Begin planning a reunion for the OCHS Lady Warriors Basketball Alumni
The best part is that - when used well - Facebook isn't about disconnectedness at all. Facebook can foster connections you'd given up on. Create little fiefdoms of common interests and common histories - from where you graduated from high school to where you went to parties in college. For me, Facebook has built a great big picture of my life so far, pulling in friends from growing up, from various schools, from work, from the places I've lived. Sure, some of those connections will be tangential and brief. But they're there. And they not only connect me with those people, they connect me with that part of myself and give me someone else who remembers when from each era of my life.
So...are you on Facebook?
4 comments:
I'm happy to be a key contributor to your life-changing experience. You forgot to add that you are Linkedin's newest addition, too! I'm so proud, and "I told ya so!"
So what held you back for so long? It looks like what is broken is e-mail considering all the spam and mailing lists we're inundated with. Services like Facebook have replaced e-mail, it seems.
On a personal level, though, my e-mail is pretty controlled.
Facebook seemed like a waste of time, frankly. It seemed like a way to set up a lot of superficial connections, but what I'm finding is that it actually saves time in some regards. I have one big way to keep in touch with a lot of people at once and not have to email the same thing over and over.
Bottom line - there are early adapters and there are the last ones on the bandwagon, and nine times out of ten, I'm going to be the latter.
Happy to see this AHA. Please do not ignore the friend request I'm about to send you :)
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