This whole facebook "thing" is a unique sort of a revolution. Although I suppose all revolutions are unique...The curious thing about this particular revolution is that it is about connecting people into relationships, into community, into conversation. I suppose blogging does this as well to those "connected" to ones' blog but somehow facebook is more relationship-oriented.
Facebook is not about simply exchanging facts or ideas, but rather exchanging our lives. Don't you wish real life was more like facebook? Where you actually engaged people in real conversations over a coffee or coke? But we don't have time for that because of the busyness of our life - do we? So we wait (typically) for the hours after most have gone to bed and blog, post notes, poke people, or send private messages to our facebook family. How many of you check facebook (or your blog) throughout the day to see if someone has left you note?
The other thing that strikes me about facebook (which blogging did to a point) is that I've reignited so many relationships from my past, from my college years in particular - the time in which my relationships didn't have a lot to do with who I was related to but with whom I actually had something in common with. Facebook in many ways has brought that past back from the dead to life - or at least an online version of life. It has also reconnected me to friends from all over the world.
I still believe that a face-to-face conversation still trumps anything that facebook attempts to do but I will say that this networking has the potential of bringing such a face-to-face conversation into life as well!
So know that you've endured my meandering musings - consider yourself poked and feel free to dialogue or be in conversation whether you like the topic of facebook or not!
Some questions for further conversation: What joys has facebook (or blogging) brought to you? How is blogging like facebook? How does it differ or is blogging unique?
3 comments:
I only started Facebooking 4 days ago, but within 24 hours I had connected with people that I haven't seen in 20 years. How cool is that?
Blogging... As I've said before - Blogging is a cold, hard world. Little comments, poor readership, it sucks. You pour your heart out into something and you don't know if it gets out there. Sure, you can blog for yourself, and I do, but sometimes it's nice to have a little feedback.
You can add me on Facebook if I haven't already added you, Garth.
So true about blogging - it started out alright but hard to get comments from anyone but the regulars. The facebook connect to friends from the past is a blast but I wonder if it will only be a temporary fix. One cool thing is that we contact our kids' babysitter via facebook - hilarious eh?
Interesting article about Facebook
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-watson/facebook-generation-will_b_52581.ht
ml
Post a Comment