So That's Life?

Going with the flow in my last post, I probably overshot the timeline. Blogging was actually the last and most current thing that I’ve done in my foray back into the online world.

Let’s skip back a few months to when I first decided to seriously jump back into cyberspace.

I’m enrolled in the public administration master’s program at the University of Hawaii and I was talking to a few of my friends from class. They were mentioning how several classmates were exchanging information via Facebook. I would have to be stupid not to know the name but I certainly didn’t know one social network from another. I distinctly remember confusing MySpace and Facebook which drew knowing looks of disapproval! There I was, sitting with two 20-somethings, talking about web applications that had been developed by people who weren’t born until I graduated from high school. I’m sure that they were more than a little amused.

I wasn’t born yesterday (obviously) and I instantly saw that if I was going to be able to fit in with people from my class (i.e., really young people), I had to adapt. I think I went home and immediately registered for a Facebook account. I was instantly bombarded with options about what my interests were, what school I attended, my marital status, and (most unsettlingly) what picture I wanted to use for my page. With immense amount of help from a co-worker (and friend) Capsun Poe, I was able to straighten out which friends could/should see what information and how to prevent major faux pas.

With my new online identity firmly established, I was ready to face the vast openness that lay before me. That is, until I discovered the next gazillion options that lay in the Facebook applications. There were status updates, news posts, favorites, fans of, walls, messages, super-walls, and photo albums, just to name a few. I was fairly overwhelmed. I slowly investigated each one to see waht they did and what they didn’t do. Fortunately, quite a few of my “in real life” (IRL) friends had been using FB for a while so, as soon as I added them I was exposed to many of the features first hand.

To say that I was overwhelmed might be an overstatement. I’d worked with some very complicated software in the past and FB wasn’t any more difficult than the others. What did actually overwhelm me was the reach that this application had. I spent more than a few hours simply entering names into the search screen looking for people I knew. Surprisingly, more than a handful were there. I quickly added everyone from my class, several from the office, a few high school classmates, and many associates I knew from past jobs. Before I knew it, I had over 50 new “friends”. I wasn’t entirely sure that any of them were remotely interested in an update of my status, but I was changing it on a regular basis anyway. I was a member of the community!

There are some obvious benefits to being on Facebook. First, I can enter the URL for my blog in both my personal information and post it in my status when a new post is done. It also allows me to keep in touch with classmates to exchange information about assignments and make plans to get together after class. Most importantly is the fact that it has become a place where I can meet new people. I’ve recently begun spending way too much time playing Texas Hold ‘Em through FB. Amazingly enough, through conversation at the table, I have added several people to my FB friend list. These are turning out not to be merely casual acquaintances, but rather people who I wouldn’t mind getting to know better outside the game. The idea of online friendships is certainly not new but for me, the ability to expand a ring of friends across the globe is exciting. Unlike the “old days” where IM chatrooms were popular, a friend on FB can actually learn about you be seeing how you interact with other people through posts and comment to posts.

Before you begin to think that I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of FB fandom, realize that I also see the faults. Online friendships will always lack the immediacy of in-person meetings. If I can’t see some one’s face, I don’t really know if I can trust them. And there is definitely a propensity for people to become someone else while online. For better or worse, it is easy to take on another persona when the other person can’t see you.

After weighing things out, I’ve decided that Facebook works for me. It allows me to keep in touch with people I need to and any downside is only a problem if I cease to be diligent in how I judge people. Basically, it isn’t much different from the physical world.