I survived another day without logging onto facebook. Shocking! The only thing that was challenging was being home all day long and I might have spent some time facebooking while I've been sick and laying around the house.
Status updates are an interesting addition that the facebook site didn't always have. I think the up and coming twitter may have sparked this way of instantly giving the public access to where you are, what you are thinking, and anything random you want to share. I could then tell people where I was, what made me upset, how my day went, or a shout out to a cause or person I wanted to support. It has become every one's personal soap box for whatever they want it to become, worthy of time or not.
It's crazy thinking about how much of a window that allows people to have. I don't know about everyone else, but I have a lot of "friends" on facebook that I don't talk to, I met once, or haven't seen in ages; yet they have suddenly been able to share in anything that I want them to know. Don't get me wrong it's been nice to share things with a mass audience instead of sending personal messages about something, but I think that hits one of my pet peeves right on the head. It drives me crazy when I find things out about some of my close friends not from the person, but from facebook posts. What has happened to personal connection? I'm not immune though, I've gotten sucked in to it and facebook is the first place I would run to share anything and everything that happens to me.
There has to be a way of balancing things. I don't think I need to call everyone and let them know I won an ipod from a radio station because that's not something they'd all care to know (at least that's what I perceived to be true), but on the other hand putting it out there in cyberspace made it easier. Such an American thing to take the easy route and try to eliminate any effort in making human connection. We are so connected online that we've become disconnected in offline interaction. How sad! It's evident in conversations I hear in passing that start with "I saw you posted on facebook..." that our online 'lives' are deeply ingrained in our life, it almost defines culture.
It all makes me wonder where we are headed. I wonder what history will have to say about our social media culture in years to come- and how it has effected human interactions or lack thereof.
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