CODA: I declare that I will not enter my children's Facebook pages, so you don't have to give second thoughts to what you put up on your walls.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
My daughters (actually, one in particular) convinced me that I should join. open, start.....(I don't know the lingo yet) Facebook. I knew about Facebook but hadn't ventured in, believing that I was probably well beyond the age limit to participate. But not wanting to seem a Luddite or, as we labeled it in the 60's, a "square" I started an account(hopefully this will lead to lucrative withdrawals but more likely to painful, prolonged withdrawal accompanied by hallucinations and cold sweats - not the kind James Brown referred to in his song). Immediately, I was barraged by e-mails from people who wanted to be my "friend." The average age of these would-be friends was about 30; some of them I knew when they were my daughters' friends in grade school; some of them I had no idea who they were or how they knew me. I'm guessing the latter group are friends of my daughters who saw my recognizable last name & just perfunctorily(the length and pronunciation difficulty of that word definitely contrasts with its meaning) decided to ask me to add them to my friends list. This made me think about comments from my daughters about their friends' parents wanting to be added to my daughters' lists. They were always telling me how weird that was. I took their word for it. Then, an old high school friend suddenly "wrote on my wall." (See, I'm already being colonized by the technology. My native language is being replaced by Facespeak.) Hearing from him was copasetic (like cool maaan), but I also realized that all the the messages people sent or that I sent them would be out there on that wall. This didn't seem particularly liberating. I could imagine every time I "talked" (Is that what communication is called, or is it every time I "facebooked" or "walled"?), I would have to weigh the consequences of one of my daughters' (and now my son's) friends reading it. You might ask what I have to hide. Actually, enough. If I start talking to old high school or college buddies on my wall, the sordid episodes of my life between 12 & 21 will become fodder for the Facebook nation. My carefully constructed past might crumble, and my children might have to start issuing denials on their wall of any familial relationship with that crazy old guy who happens to have the same name as and look somewhat like their father. So, if you happen to be one of my children's friends, don't be offended if I don't honor your request to be befriended. As a writer, I cherish elements of my sordid past as source material, but I reserve the right to put those actions in the hands and minds of skillfully veiled personas. When I write a poem or a blog, I'm a writer with all the writer's rights to screw with the reader. That's what makes writing fun for both sides! So you can read my wall, but be forewarned; it will be dull as my reported life can be.
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3 comments:
Dad - you're missing the point of facebook.
Imagine it as a virtual neighborhood populated by all sorts of people from your life - both present and past. When you "talk" on your wall, it's like you're talking in public - over the fence, as it were - and everyone knows that your conversation is public and that they can join the conversation if they like. But there are ways to talk privately, too - you can send private messages that work like email, that no one but the people you send it to can read, or you can I.M. like you and I were doing. But once you've been friended, you SHOULD go to your friends (or in this case, your children's) pages - because it's part of the way the community of facebook works. And if some of my friends have friended you - it's not weird - they're adults, not teenagers, and you can treat them as peers.
I know you're there - so i'm not going to post anything that I wouldn't want you to see or read (and honestly, I'm 35, it's not like there's anything I'm hiding anymore). I have good, old friends on my page, I have my sisters, my husband, a niece and a nephew, I have people I haven't talked to since grade school, I have people I only know through work, like my agent and certain producers, I have found people from Changzhou who are willing to talk to me about FF's city, I have teachers like Gwen and Kathy and Joe Zingo - - and they all have access to my page, and I post accordingly. It's less intimate than a blog, really - more sociable, and it's less specific than posting on a board that caters to single interests. I find it such a good way to keep up with my social circle. I can glance at my page and see that Gina is studying in New York, my friend Molly who lives ten minutes away is making gingerbread and her daughter has the same cold that FF has, my friend Linda who is in L.A. is decorating her tree with her daughter, and a guy I haven't talked to since the seventh grade is celebrating his 36th birthday. I can stay in touch with people I never would have found otherwise - almost like they live in my neighborhood and I'm seeing them on the street or at the grocery store. I can do all this without the work or time of writing letters or making phone calls (not that there is anything wrong with either of those things) - you can just comment on their day to day posting when you feel moved to do so - track the public moments of their lives that they choose to share. And, unlike my blog, I can control who I share information with, choose who I want to let in.
Facebook isn't about secrets - quite the opposite. It's about community and networking. It's about unearthing people from your past and making new friends (I friend people who my friends recommend to me, I friend work people - or sometimes a writer or someone from the adoption community might contact me. It's a great place to find people who share interests or could help you professionally). It's more interactive than blogging, more casual, and more social, also more controlled.
You have to engage if you want facebook to work for you. It can be a time suck - but it also can be extremely helpful - a way to stay in touch, find pieces of your past, look at pictures, share the moment to moment life of your friends and family. I have to say that for me, since I'm an extremely social person who likes to communicate through the written word, it's a great place. I think you would like it if you stopped worrying about whether you were intruding on our privacy and just plunged in. Facebook isn't a secret society, it's a virtual town square, and you should treat it like that. It's fun, Dad! I hope you'll visit my page.
If you're going to look at our facebooks as Maia is suggesting I just want you to keep in mind that no one thinks to take pictures of people when they're studying. If someone did take pictures of me while I was studying though, there would be 1000s of photos of me drifting about the internet.
Is it the photos that would be drifting or you? Sounds like a Zen koan.
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