My son logged off FB the other day and suspended his account after falling into the habit of going on to all his friends' and families' pages to see what was going on. He said it made him feel like a stalker.
I can relate. Facebook has its place, definitely. I totally enjoy watching my 2nd cousins grow up, and get to know their wonderful sense of humor with their siblings and friends. They are terrific kids. Their parents and I haven't seen each other since passing through from OH to CA in '92, and they didn't have children yet. Now their family is 4 strong with the eldest off to college in the fall. So in that way FB is an amazing opportunity to not lose touch with people outside of our self-contained lives. Would I be picking up the phone if FB weren't an option? No.
Seems like access preferences are making connections harder, too. Some prefer only calls. Some texts. Some FB posts. Some Skype. Some only email. Some old-fashioned mail. So when there is family news, who can remember it all? I have a friend who encouraged me to communicate with her through FB. By the time I reluctantly joined, she had moved on to texting which I didn't know how to do and had to learn. Now that I have a jazzy Samsung keyboard slide phone, I realize we don't talk any more often than before I chased her all over Tecchyland. Now she's suggesting I learn to Twitter. Instead I suggested she just give me a call sometime.
It brings to mind that scene from the movie He's Just Not That Into You where Drew Barrymore is trying to coordinate a date ... he calls her cell, she returns the call from the office, he texts her, she calls him from her landline, he facebooks her ... and so on? Real life, baby.
My son criticises FB for having no real give or take, other than comments and photos that I wonder the wisdom of posting on a public forum. I posted a political article link once and was gently repramanded by a friend who said she never posted anything controversial on FB. So ... FB really is just the morning mask of Jane Jetson but not somewhere to really talk...which is kinda sad since it is one of our primary communication tools.
Other than sharing the occasional excitement of a big trip, promotion, or family event, I don't find it all that interesting. I think FB is best when it connects friends and family together to meet up later.
I maintain an account on FB for distance friends / family because more and more this is where all of life is shared. FB-esque communicades are rapidly becoming a substitute for more meaningful relationship building activities like calls and visits. FB is a mass, indirect, impersonal communication tool sent out to hook a response. Ever gone fishing?
I never yearned to return to the school environment of the popular crowd after school. But FB is patterned after a college social network of young people with unlimited time on their hands. I admit there is anticipation with logging on and often disappointment of finding no messages for me. How can a social network also be a solitary experience where you spend potentially hours roaming around seeing what others are doing? No wonder it's getting old.
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