I haven't been afraid of technology, only pessimistic about it. It's always felt like another gadget that comes between life that is more real, more direct, more personal. Computers are so expensive and quickly obsolete that they seem too much a part of our sad throw-away society, with corporations making bundles as people become more and more isolated, sitting and staring at these glowing screens as time blurs away.
When e-mail became prevalent, I readily accepted it for work-related purposes because it made my work life easier, but I hated it for personal correspondence and clung to my black pens and various papers and my playful handwriting, remembering how good it feels to find a letter with a friend's handwriting among the stack of faceless bills and advertisements. In spite of this pleasure, I've long since given up my reluctance and now primarily use e-mail with only occasional cards and letters mailed the old-fashioned way, though I continue to feel I've allowed an important part of me to slip away.
When my dear friend began a blog, I swallowed my criticism and wondered what on earth would make one want to put oneself so vulnerably before strangers. Yet here I am. (Though I have connected with some real friends through this means of communication.)
And when Facebook splashed across computers, I ignored it completely, until I realized that my daughter primarily communicates this way, that she'd given up answering my e-mails (though she sometimes responds to text messages), and all the promised photographs never arrived because they are accessible from her Facebook page.
So what bothers me still about Facebook?
I do not like its tiny bits and pieces of information scrolling down the page like so much advertising for individuals. These little pieces remind me of the short attention spans that are being cultivated (the better to keep folks from thinking seriously about anything). They also remind me of the scrolling newslines at the bottom of a TV screen, the little intense bursts of inflammatory "news" that isn't news, sort of like the color-coded alarm system for airport security (the better to keep one's adrenalin levels up while at the same time causing us all to wonder what the heck we're supposed to DO----and, of course, the answer is "nothing". . . Just do nothing and let Big Brother worry about it. . . ).
I do not like the perversion of the word "friend" that includes total strangers and mere acquaintances who can dip into your life at will. Such mindless "democracy" makes me feel that my friends don't really think of me as a true friend, only another number in a stack of Facebook Friends, all with equal access to what has become my only access to some of my true friends.
And, I absolutely abhor only being able to see this surface facet of my only child----and very little else.
But as I think about it here, perhaps Facebook allows me to see too much of my only child (who's a young woman), and this is what disturbs me. I am part of an audience that includes her best friends and they know so much more about her than I.
Facebook is just that: very little. . . a tiny taste of a friend's or relative's life, experienced by scrolling down a computer screen, distant, words with feelings attached on one end without having the real connection at the other.
