I’m not a-twitter by Facebook in my space
Published 7:57 am Thursday, April 16, 2009
Who would have thought e-mail would ever be considered so old-fashioned?
I remember sitting in some school computer lab, probably 18 years ago, wondering how this labor-intensive form of communication would ever catch on.
Of course, that was back when you had to type an endless stream of seemingly meaningless symbols just to send a one-line message to your friend on the other side of the room.
It was long before “back- slash,” “dot-com” and “http” became part of our daily lexicon.
Now we’d be lost without it.
We’d be forced to actually speak with people.
But, like everyone else, I’ve embraced and become dependent on it.
We can share pictures, send documents and, best of all, work from home on occasion.
It’s perfect.
So why do I now feel like some outsider alone at a table in a middle-school cafeteria because I have not made Facebook, MySpace or Twitter a huge part of my personal life?
I don’t feel compelled to tell the world what mood I’m in, or what I am doing every second of the day.
And to be honest, I don’t have that much interest in anyone else’s mood or activities.
I succumbed to peer pressure about a year ago and set up Facebook and MySpace pages. I even posted some pictures and answered some questions about where I’m from, where I live and what I do.
Since then, I’ve done nothing except endure criticism from people in real life who judge me harshly for ignoring their “friend requests,” or for not being completely up to date on their mood at 3:15 Sunday afternoon.
I got requests from people I haven’t spoken with since high school homeroom. And even then, we only spoke because our last names both started with the letter “H.” I sat behind Dan Hall every year for four years. We weren’t friends then, so why does he want to be friends now? And why would I care where he lives, who he married, what mood he’s in today or what movie he saw last weekend?
Sure, I’ll admit it’s a little entertaining to type in people’s names and see what became of them. I also have reconnected temporarily with an old friend here and there including a friend in my wedding party, a printing-press operating parnter in 11th grade shop and numerous people on my old college newspaper, “The Spectator.”
But I am just not that interested in most of the people and I don’t feel the need to visit their profile and see pictures of their kids.
I will admit that I’ll head directly for a profile if the preview picture gives me reason to believe the catty, cheerleader snob from high school looks to have backed into an air hose. Now that’s online enjoyment, not to mention karma.
And don’t tell me you haven’t typed in the name of an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, or even the name of their current significant other.
These sites really have made online stalking much easier. I also love when people are dumb enough to post incriminating things on these pages.
Ah, today’s youth is just getting brighter and brighter.
At least all my friends stopped prank calling people when caller ID came about.
Well, most of them, at least. So if you all will excuse me, I have a few e-mails to return.
And for anyone interested, my mood is frustrated, and right this second I am writing a column for the newspaper.
Jeff Hage is the editor of the Fergus Falls Daily Journal.