Before Facebook came along, we used Yahoo Groups, Ning, email and database-driven websites that catered to specific interest groups. Before that, we had bulletin boards and CompuServe, Adelphi and AOL. Before that, we used telephones, wrote letters and hung out at bars and pubs to encourage and commiserate.
Since Facebook and the onset of teeny tiny handheld devices, we've boxed ourselves in to viewing life through miniscule windows that peer out onto the world. Facebook and texting are the new & improved opiate of the masses. With the inky winky windows comes the necessity for acronyms, since real words are too big for this tiny world. BRB. LOL. OMG. ADHD. ADHD is key; it names an inability to focus on one thing at a time. Kind of like not being able to turn off your ability to multitask; becoming unable to resist the magnetic attraction to the world in a box. BTW, there's an old word for this new syndrome: addiction.
We forego real conversations for truncated messages on our tiny screens. For all the influx of information, our world gets smaller and smaller. We develop a co-dependency on Facebook as if it is the only conduit to our network of friends. We spew out cryptic messages in hopes of sympathy or instant popularity. We have to invent personas, facades that show us at our wittiest, cleverest, archetypic best.
For me, Facebook has become a tool of absolution. I get contacted by people from my past who want to apologize for insulting me 30 years ago. It's been on their minds for a long long time and now they want absolution, forgivenness for past transgressions. I'm okay with that. Even though I have no clue what they're talking about I forgive them for whatever it was they did that's been bothering them. So Facebook does have a purpose in my life. How about you?
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