The fact that at this stage in life I am among “28 percent of'' and a part of "the fastest growing’’ any group blows my mind.
Got my Time featuring the Facebook cover story last weekend. It took me two days to bring myself to reading the
piece and facing the music. Just as I had decided in March 2010 to join the FB community, after resisting it, if not rebelling against it, for years, just as I had reluctantly signed on only because I needed a practical cheap way to stay in touch with my college daughter studying abroad, along comes an article stressing about the evils of the mega online gathering hole.Or, so I thought.
Not only was the Facebook Time piece reassuring to this part-time teacher and retired newspaper journalist, it was a successful virtual treatment for the social-anxiety bug I’ve been carrying in the last three months of connectivity. And, if being cured doesn’t beat all, I am actually having fun reconnecting with old friends and keeping up with current people. I know it’s nothing to brag about comparatively speaking, but, more than 200 friends and counting without trying hard.
See, four or five years ago, I had to “sign in blood’’ an agreement with my resident teenager to not ever dis-grace the pages of FB with my presence (My words. Hers were somewhat kinder). The social site was the meeting place for her demographic, not old people, she had persisted. No problem, I acquiesced. Think I would have rather taken castor oil anyway than stoop to such a level of communication. After all, I wrote respectable L-O-N-G newspaper stories for a living.
As the world would turn, my teenager grew up to be 21 early this year, and with her blessing (ha), I signed on to FB in March. It was time to shed the self-righteous response to the endless nagging requests: “Friend me?’’ Who do I think I am? There now are 28 percent like me (mature guarded narcissist), according to the Time report, hanging out on the playground, over-caring, over-thinking, over-sharing, over-informing, and in heavy traffic taking turns pontificating, venting, poking, cruising, hamming, boasting and tantrum-throwing. Not to mention over-compensating for the loss art of actual conversation.
As it turns out, we’re not too old to have friends under 30, reminding them in horror that their posts may contain TMI.
Bring on the heightened security and privacy toys, uh, tools.
Disclosure/Disclaimer: I am not tech phobic. I am not now nor have I ever been a part of the TRM (tech resistance movement). I was a card-carrying 1990s personal technology writer that attended CES annually, a PC owner and email writer since the ‘80s, a blogger since 2006, and a cell phone holder since the heavy-weighted Motorola age (Just ask AT&T). My friends call me “gadget ho’’. I own a smart phone and overuse it. And, in some clueless circles I am seriously considered an early adopter.
