Socialization

Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, [__]Space, etc...

Various forms of means for us to interact with friends and family. Some of whom we regularly speak with, some we rarely or never speak with. Its made us lazy. Careless. And pretentiously appearing to give a shit when in actuality we don't. We add childhood friends whom we haven't spoken with in years or even decades. People who lived down the street for years but we never cared enough then to call up and go out for coffee just to chat. We communicate with people we long ago gave up on because of a tiff or due to legit causes to quit seeing them. Now all of a sudden, we care about what's going on in their lives. We can hit "like" or "follow" and never speak to that person again. We can share pictures and pretend that we are fully involved in one another's lives. But reality, we're not going down the street to visit, or jumping on a plane to make that connection a reality. We stay in our secluded corners of the world, we hide from one another and don't say much. I can go to Wal-mart and be told by someone who doesn't hang out with me what I said a week ago due to Facebook. Or I can be asked at the grocery store by someone I haven't seen in years, "Don't you ever read my page? Where have you been?" when I express surprise at an impending wedding or pregnancy. I'm sorry. But once you hit 100, its hard to keep up with everyone's separate lives. Now I have people wanting to add me to Linkedin. I joined GOOGLE+ because I saw some of my Facebook friends were joining. Just as I followed when they all left MySpace (which is now [___]Space) for Facebook years ago. I've been on FB for four years now. I have communicated more with family using that social device than by email, reunions or phone calls in the 30 years prior. Family tells my mother everything I do and say. It got so bad that now I removed 98% of my family from my Facebook Friend List. And she's happier now learning from me than from them whats going on in my life. I also have a Twitter account. Not to keep up with friends and their every second of the day thoughts and movements, but to find out whats going on in celebrity news. Yes, I want to know if a show is going to have a certain guest star. If someone is not going to be on a show anymore, and why or why not. Things of that nature. I have Blogger to keep up with friends' interesting photos, journals, stories, and whatever other creative idea they feel like sharing which cannot be shared on those other network sites. Does this make me more removed? Perhaps. But then, I've always been a loner, introverted to the point that I prefer my friends here, online, than in person. There's less drama. Less stupid comments. And Facebook helps me to remember anniversaries, birthdays and other neccessary dates that I normally would have gotten a card mailed off to them can now be held off to the last second to give them my well wishes.