Facing Up to Facebook

Facing up to Facebook

by Jenny Schroedel

When I sit down to write I try to rein in my staccato thoughts, to organize them into something cohesive, but instead I'm assaulted by possible status updates, such as the one I just posted: "Jenny is writing about Facebook, listening to an ukulele jam session and watching chickens strut about."

Hmm, I wonder, what exactly is happening to my brain? Facebook. This is my brain on Facebook: scattered, unruly, even more distractible than usual (and that is saying a lot).

There's no getting around it, Facebook is addictive: It's fascinating to see photos of your friends from preschool holding their newborn babies, to discover where life has carried people from every phase of your life, and to hear sound bites from people you love all over the world. It's just a nibble of news, really, a handful of photos, a few quotes — but it is something after all, a chance to reconnect and to rediscover.

And yet, for all the appeal, I can't help but think that most of the time I spend on Facebook could be accompanied by Bono singing, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for...." Because for me, at least, Facebook offers a tease of an encounter but not the fullness. It's like gazing at a window display of another life — you can see just enough to be intrigued, but you can't get in. I mean, you can poke, or even "superpoke," but the glass is still there.

Keeping Up

Communication is accelerating faster than I could have imagined. I've met each new trend with some skepticism, but then warmed. When blogging first started, I was horrified. I thought it was like tearing out all the pages of your journal and tossing them to the wind, to be scattered around the world. I thought that the whole point of keeping a journal was that it was supposed to private.

But then I started reading blogs and realized that good blogs are a gift. They help us make sense of our own experience, they make us laugh, and they give us a chance to... [continues]

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