Face Places and All Those Other Silly Spaces

I used to do Facebook but you get a little too wrapped up in that stuff.

 It's more distracting than anything so I don't any more.

 I left it behind. I detoxed!

~Emma Stone

Who Knew?

I got my first computer in the late 90's, actually it was a gift from my Mother, (God bless her sweet soul!) And I took to the Internet like a duck to water -  I'd found my "place"! Trouble was that I had no computer skills whatsoever. I had to teach myself and it was a lot of trial and error, (to say the least). Another big problem was that I got addicted to my "Little Box" super quick. I got swept up onto that Internet Highway and the hours would literally fly by as I learned how to master this new interest of mine. Sorry to report that my obsession with my computer took a toll on my marriage, but it did. 

But that's not what I want to write about today. 

What is on my mind is this love affair folks are having with Facebook, Twitter and similar places like them.  When I first got online, (which I was on AOL for a lot of years),  there weren't many places to communicate with the masses. Ya had the notorious chat rooms, complicaTED message boards and basic email - that was about it.

I remember when I began "online journaling" people thought I was really strange to put an internet diary out there for the whole world to read, (which in reality only a couple of my online friends made time to read it). Then a couple years later along comes the infamous B-L-O-G! 

Suddenly everyone thought it was cool and had to jump on the blog-wagon. 

Go figure,...

I still think blogging is one of the better aspects of the Internet and wish I had more time and opportunity to devote to my blog. Blogging on library or other people's computers is a pain. But I remain hopeful that the day will come when I'm in a place and have a computer again, (mother board fried in my old one).

High Tech Bubbles

As much as I support, (and enjoy), the "Computer Age", I find it alarming to witness the extent of where we have gone and are continuing to go when it comes to our fascination/addiction with high tech gizmo's and gadgets. We've gone far beyond just having computers on a desk. We have cell phones, ipods, kindles, notepads, laptops and ipads. I can't keep up with it anymore - seems like yesterday my oldest child was begging me to get him a beeper!

The whole texting phenomenon is something I never expected. Yes, I have a cell phone, (who doesn't these days?), but I rarely text, (try not to anyway).  Yes, our high tech toys enable us to be in instant contact with each other and it doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing, we can toss out our most mundane and trivial thoughts to the whole world to read in a matter of seconds. Do we really have that much to say that we have to be "tuned" in 24/7? Seems to me that we're so preoccupied with texting/Twittering that we're oblivious to the real people around us like neighbors, co-workers and the folks we rub elbows with in general. Our eyes and attention are cast downward and we aren't even able to meet another person's face and exchange smiles. Our High Tech Bubbles are cutting us off from the outside world and that is not a good thing. It's especially detrimental in regard to our kids/teens. They already have issues with paying attention to people, they certainly don't need to be plugged in to their high tech gadgets to distract them more.


 There was a time when we were totally cool without having the ability to have instant communication at our fingertips, (literally), and if we got a busy signal when we called a friend it was no big deal, we'd get a hold of them sooner of later. And friends were actual people that we'd chat face to face with outside the grocery store, along the backyard fence or over a game of Canasta, not sitting at a little box typing impersonal quips and  barbs to pop off to some "Face Place" where the only evidence of having friends is if they are so inclined to casually click a  "Like" button . 


Hopelessly Addicted? 
Have we become a society so severely addicted to high tech socializing that we have lost the ability to meet another human being's face and form intelligent words that shape a good, old fashioned conversation? Have we lost interest in the intimate spontinaity of the in-person, up close and personal meet and greet with real folks out there in the world?
If so, then we are sacrificing one of the most precious gifts in life - eye to eye, hand-in-hand friendship. The kind that treasured memories are created from.


We need to take a break, power down and unplug.
Call it old fashioned, but it can all wait, the Twittering, the Facebooking and all that trivial texting. Close your eyes and just listen and those footsteps you hear? That is a real life person walking by and all you have to do is smile and say hello!

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution.

 Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.

~Philip Zimbardo