Well, I've been on Facebook now for a few weeks, and I'm still getting used to it. When I first started using Livejournal, I used to hit the "random entry" button (not sure if it's still there) and just read what random people had put on the net --- it was almost "poetic", like a modern version of T.S.Eliot's "Wasteland"".
Facebook is different --- people aren't writing about their day to day life; it's almost "public email exchanges" with short crisp exchanges. So much is there, I almost feel like I'm intruding when I click on someone's profile.
I looked up some former students who may or may not remember me, just to see how they have managed to cope with college because I wonder what they have made of themselves. It's a very disorienting experience --- click on one link and you find hundreds of smiling pictures, but click on the link next to it (same person) and you find a blog full of torment and depression and self-doubt.
I wonder how this tool would have affected me had it been around while I went through adolescence. Now, as a middle-aged adult, I find myself just wanting to use it to connect to other people intellectually. I'm not sure if that will work --- the groups I found that looked interesting all seemed to have been inactive for months. People start them, there's a flurry of posts in which opinions are expressed, and then things die off. Who knows? Maybe I'll start the discussion group that sticks...
Facebook is different --- people aren't writing about their day to day life; it's almost "public email exchanges" with short crisp exchanges. So much is there, I almost feel like I'm intruding when I click on someone's profile.
I looked up some former students who may or may not remember me, just to see how they have managed to cope with college because I wonder what they have made of themselves. It's a very disorienting experience --- click on one link and you find hundreds of smiling pictures, but click on the link next to it (same person) and you find a blog full of torment and depression and self-doubt.
I wonder how this tool would have affected me had it been around while I went through adolescence. Now, as a middle-aged adult, I find myself just wanting to use it to connect to other people intellectually. I'm not sure if that will work --- the groups I found that looked interesting all seemed to have been inactive for months. People start them, there's a flurry of posts in which opinions are expressed, and then things die off. Who knows? Maybe I'll start the discussion group that sticks...