Facebook in my opinion is not about reconnecting or keeping
in touch with family and friends. Sure
you may log onto to your account and see a friend request from an old friend
that you used to know 1, 5, 10, 15 years ago and you add them. What happens from
there? Initially there might be a few messages exchanged that vaguely describe
what they’ve been up to for the last while, telling them about their new job, how many kids they have or if their in a relationship. But this
conversation is completely unnecessary as you probably looked at their profile
when you added them, which usually tells you all of these things. In terms of an
actual friendship or relationship forming from this, is slim.
I have a Facebook account, and it says I have over 350 “friends”
in reality I don’t have 350 friends, I have few that I spend time with, and
talk to regularly. My relationship with my out of town friends and family has
not been maintained through Facebook or other social media sites. It has required the use old technology, that
means actually picking up the phone and having a meaningful conversation that is
capable of expressing emotion unlike our privately typed messages on Facebook.
A relationship takes effort and time. We stopped talking to our friend from 10
years ago because we didn’t maintain it. Using
Facebook, and other sites doesn’t make it easier to sustain a relationship. We think it does because we clicked new
message and started to type, but it still lacks actual effort. I can type a
message or a comment on something while I am doing about 10 other things at
once.
One of my favourite things to read on Facebook is a thank you post to all the people that wished them a Happy Birthday. I guess it is nice to see all your "friends" be reminded by a notification it is your birthday and they did take the time to type it on your wall. But I remember the times when people called you or stopped over to wish it to you.
Social media sites are so popular because they have made it socially
acceptable to snoop without actually having to gossip and I am happy to hear people are finally getting bored with this! Hopefully we will start to leave our computers and phones alone and pay attention to the people around us.
I agree with a lot of your points, especially the importance of picking up the phone if you really want to maintain a relationship with someone.
ReplyDeleteI also have facebook. I know it says i have like 150 friends which is hard to believe but when i look through the list i don't find any people i want to delete. I agree with you about picking up the phone and reaching out to people such as relationships are hard to maintain, but can you really call enough people to maintain good relationships when it a more time consuming way you could just send them a quick message.
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