The Source
I have 1200 friends. I know this because Facebook tells me I have 1200 friends. Aside from the fact that I don’t know whom many of these folks are, it’s comforting to know that when I go to bed at night there are 1200 people whom I can call for a lift or a loan. Or maybe not. And lo, God created man and gave him speech. Speech begat papyrus, which begat Johnny Guttenberg’s movable type, which begat the Hearst chain of newspapers, which begat the telegraph, which begat CBS radio, which begat black and white Zenith television sets with rabbit ears, which begat the Internet pop-up ads, which begat email, which begat texting, Twitter, MySpace, and finally in an exasperated moan of final creation, God created Facebook. Or maybe not. I was advised by a friend in education to enter the world of Facebook in order to contact my students quickly. She was right. Email is passé to anyone under 21, and even Facebook is only accessed via their iPods. Writing a letter? Are you kidding? The technical term for all this blather is “social networking.” I’m old enough to remember when social networking meant packing up the family on a summer’s evening and driving over to visit with friends over a bowl of homemade ice cream. Compared to today’s electronic friendship devices it was a pretty small network, but it was a great deal more social. Facebook does have a few positive perks. You can send pictures to everyone in the universe by simply tapping your mouse. One of my former students found the downside of this last week when a landlady in Bloomington called me. “Mary Jones put your name as a reference for renting an apartment.” (Mary Jones had never asked my permission to do this, but few do nowadays.) “Well, she was a good student, cheerful, seemed trustworthy.” To which the elderly apartment owner replied, “Well, I just found her picture on Facebook holding a can of beer and surrounded by boys at a party.” At this point no recommendation from me, the Pope, or God Almighty could have secured a room for Mary Jones. And, like all new technology, it makes the genuinely stupid among us seem even stupider. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve heard a teenager simply aghast because something she put on her Facebook page was seen by people who she didn’t want viewing it. Well duh! Okay, most teenagers are a bit egocentric and the reasoning in their frontal lobes lags somewhere behind an overly-ripe apricot, but to think that you’re the only person in the world is not only stupid, but downright dangerous. When you “friend” someone on Facebook they have access to whatever you choose to put on your page. For many teens, their “profile” is a hyperbolic list of whom they’d like to be instead of who they actually are, and the athletic, world-dominating strongman from Northern Indiana may indeed turn out to be a 12-year-old introvert with a 2 p.m. appointment at the dermatologist. Of course it’s no news that to believe anyone’s own publicity is a mistake. Of course you can push the “ignore” button on any befriending request. In this respect Facebook has real life beaten hands down. It often puts me in mind of my third grade classmates on Valentine’s Day, passing out “Will you be my Valentine?” cards in hopes that this little piece of tinseled cardboard would somehow be the start of a lifelong romance. How can you say no when Suzie is looking you right in your oily face? With Facebook you simply click “ignore” and Suzie might assume you’re dead and your website is being maintained by your heirs. But, like a doting mother, Facebook’s biggest weapon is simple guilt. How can you deny a little girl in Nebraska who’s done one of your scripts for contest and would simply like to say hello by becoming your friend? Okay, she may actually be a 300-pound nude mud wrestler from San Diego, but on the chance that she’s legit, you simply push “accept” then hope that mud slinging doesn’t become a part of your relationship. Maybe I’ll just throw a bit party and invite all of my 1200 friends… provided, that is, they wear nametags. Or maybe not.