Published: July 03, 2009 02:44 pm      

Brave new world of Facebook

“You gotta’ get on Facebook, Vic.”

“I do?”

"Yep.”

“Why?”

Because, he told me, lots of people I knew from the sheriff’s department and the city police and the courthouse were on it and I’d enjoy reading the comments and keeping up on the gossip and ... so I followed his instructions and created a Facebook account. Then I sent him a message asking to be his friend. He approved me and the next thing I knew, my in-box was filled with invitations from other people who’d seen my name pop up asking me to be their friend, too.

And while I was at it, I joined a Jimmie Johnson Fan Group. And I could have spent hours searching for other like-minded Groups because there are a blue million of them. If there are four people in the world who are obsessed about three-legged black cats with a white spot in the shape of a dragon on their right side, three of them have formed a Group on Facebook and they’re sending out signals to the fourth to join them. And think how joyful the last one will be to find out (s)he’s not alone.

At my age, all of this makes me slightly uneasy — for two reasons. The first is practical. It’s simply embarrassment at my own ineptitude. I’m the only one in my Facebook circle who hasn’t downloaded pictures and logos and posters. Everyone else has interesting, rainbow-bright Facebook pages while mine is drab in black and white. There is an anonymous silhouette where a picture of me is supposed to go. I don’t know how to download (or is it upload?) a picture or how to add links from other sites.

The girls in my office are members of the Facebook generation. Electronic socializing is bred into their very DNA. Downloading and uplinking and Twittering and texting come as natural to them as breathing. Meanwhile, I remember hyperventilating when I was first faced with the challenge of having to use a mouse to navigate a computer screen.

The second reason for my Facebook stress is my natural suspicion about the kind of technology that encourages you to share your innermost thoughts and the personal details of your life with any member of the public who happens to wander past. It is sort of like posting pictures of your family in Grand Central Station, knowing that con artists and crazies and perverts and stalkers are some of the millions who may take an interest. Of course, you know who you invite to be your friends but do you know who all the friends of your friends are?

I was one of those people who thought the government should not be allowed to listen in on its citizens’ phone conversations without a warrant but, heck, worrying about that kind of surveillance seems contradictory if you’re going to reveal all in public forums like Facebook.

My friend told me Facebook was cool because it put you in touch with long-lost friends. He’d found someone from his graduating class who’d disappeared, never re-visiting Wabash or returning for any class reunion. My first thought was that if the old classmate didn’t get in touch, maybe it was because he didn’t want to. I can think of a couple of old friends, I wouldn’t mind re-connecting with but I can remember some old enemies, too. I’d just as soon they never track me down. Putting my name in a search box on Facebook makes that easier than I feel comfortable with.

On the other hand, it may be that I’m just overly paranoid. The majority of Americans used to live in relatively stable communities. They attended school, church and sporting events together. They neighbored more than we do now, leaning over the back fence to chat or coming over for coffee after the kids left for school. The same families lived in the same houses for decades.

For many of us, it isn’t that way any more. People move more, and they’re busier. Almost everyone works so there isn’t much time to be neighborly. Kids go to consolidated schools where most of their classmates may be no more than nodding-in-the-hall acquaintances, if that.

I think we miss something elemental by leading such detached lives. So if in our hearts, we subconsciously yearn to recapture those connections, perhaps Facebook and MySpace serve as today’s backyard fence and bandstand in the park. A place to stop in for a visit with friends, a place to see what’s up in the neighborhood. A place where we can hang on to those we care about even if they move or change jobs or schools or churches. Even a place where we can forge strong, new bonds based on Jimmie Johnson fandom (or three-legged black cats).

The electronic community center that is Facebook has the advantage of including our past, our present and our future. 

So I’m proceeding, but cautiously. I may even learn to post a picture someday.

• Vicki Williams is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com