Back in high school – oh so many years ago – I did not consider myself much of a social butterfly. That title was reserved for the “it” girls, the ones who were the homecoming and prom queens ones, the ones who always were perfectly coifed and had the eyelashes perfectly adorned with mascara causing their eyes to resemble perfect beautiful centipedes. You know the type.
The Black Wall Phone…
I did, however, have a large circle of good friends. I connected with said friends via the large black wall phone with the extended version of the coiled cord (so that I could steal into the hall closet when nosy brothers or sisters appeared).
Mom! Dad! Mimi is in the closet again!
I also connected with them over restaurant tables (Denny’s, Holiday Inn, Foss Drug Store, etc.) splitting French fries or a side of guacamole and chips.
The Library…
In college, my friends and I would meet at the “Library”, a local bar named to throw off nosy parents.
My, I am so proud of Mimi. She is hitting the library so often this semester!
Or, we would go to a local dance bar to get our groove on.
Losing Touch…
Post-college, my friends and I did one of three things:
- We wrote letters…then lost touch
- We telephoned…then lost touch
- Nothing…we just lost touch
And forget about all those year of raising a family and climbing the career ladder. Who had time for friends? Those nosy brothers, sisters, and parents became my friends. With a family as large as mine (4 sisters, 4 brothers), spanning – at any given time – three to six states across the US, it was a challenge making sure information was shared equitably.
What do you mean so-and-so just had a baby? No one told ME she was pregnant!
At one point, we started a chain letter. We took a bunch of computer track paper (remember those?) so that the letter would stay together. The first one wrote a family update, then sent the whole packet of paper to the next in line, who wrote a family update, then sent to next in line…and so on…and so on. I think it maybe made its way one full cycle – if that. It just wasn’t worth the time it took to make that long-distance reminder call.
No, I wrote the letter and sent it to Mark who was supposed to send it to Jim. Call him!
The FaceBook Phenomenon
Ahh, but now we have magic at our disposal. We have …FaceBook…(cue celestial music)…and LinkedIn…and Flicker…and Instagram…and…and…and…
It may have taken my generation some time to get on board. It is not that my generation does not like to take on new challenges. After all, ours was the first generation to utilize the computer on a widespread basis. Remember the computer punch cards we all used in college?
Remember the Flying Ace Snoopy picture that was produced when all the cards were correctly placed into the computer?
Good times! Wait, is someone smoking grass? Not in the computer lab, people!
It took us long to get on board because, when introduced, social media was meant for the teenager (My Space) or the college student (FaceBook) – not for the baby boomer crowd. But then, some boomer pioneer discovered the POWER OF FACEBOOK (cue echo sound effect)!
Now we stand at the virtual window of every relative, old friend, and acquaintance. We peer into lives shared online. We take what we want and scroll past what we don’t. We stay up-to-date with every pregnancy announcement through posted ultrasound pictures – and we secretly zoom into the appropriate area to try to figure out the gender. We are witness to every pre-school, kindergarten, grade school, high school and college graduation. We watch snippets of every dance recital or key sports achievement. We have an insight into the political and religious leaning of friends and family, without having to engage in the awkward face-to-face confrontation.
You believe in the ancient alien theory???? You are voting for that so-and-so????
The Over-The-Shoulder Readers…The FaceBook Stalkers…
And those of you who feel that social media is not for you? Hmmm maybe someone else is securing the information for you.
So Mimi, any news happening with MY family? Wait, did I just see you looking at picture of Margie? What is she doing on that ship?
Or, maybe you really are interested, silently stalking the site, gathering important tidbits along the way. Yes, I am talking about you Dad!
I don’t DO those FaceBook things. Christine set up the account for me and I only go in to check out what is happening because NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING!
Aww FB, we thank you for giving us a means to poke, like, share, friend, de-friend, and post random cat videos at our leisure. Thank you LinkedIn, for allowing us to live vicariously through colleagues who got the job we wanted. Thank you Flickr for letting us see pictures of our grandchilden that our sons and daughters forgot to share with us. Thank you Twitter…well, I am not sure why…but thanks.
In my sixties, I now have some time to really explore this social media revolution. In addition to Facebook for keeping up with family and friends, LinkedIn for professional colleagues, and Pinterest for the exploration of everyone’s taste factor, I now am using Instagram, Google+, and Ancestry.com. In addition to these, I now tweet! And I am considering the virtues of Reddit, and Tumblr.
Watch out world! I am in a connecting state of mind.