Sunday, September 28, 2014

Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

The Facebook blues

 by Julie Carter

Are you Facebooking yet? You might be missing out on a chirpy "howdy" in the morning or a late-night laugh at a one-liner you would never have heard from someone you never see in person. If you haven’t logged in, you are already a decade behind.

The wildly popular 10-year-old social network called Facebook has grown to an active membership of 1.3 billion. Some of us here in rural American West are a small part of that count.

I don't know what your excuse is, but my kids drug me into this. Oh, I tried the MySpace thing (same idea, different format) to track my own child's activities as he participated in the teenage rage of MySpace socializing. It's a mom's job.

And, every time one of those pages blinded me with psychedelic moving backgrounds, flashing blingy letters, rotating photos and music that blew me off my office chair, I lost another piece of my desire to visit.

A quieter, gentler opportunity arrived on the scene in the form of Facebook, with white pages and a standardized font. In the years since, there have been many “upgrades” but the end result is still a basic format for socializing from the comfort of home or now, anywhere with your phone or tablet
Quickly Facebook became a social network not just for kids. Four years into the movement, the 35-and-over group was the fastest growing portion of a membership surge.

With this socializing by computer came the need for personal discipline. It is so much more enjoyable to "visit," comment, look and read than it is to, oh let’s say, cook, clean and do laundry. It also can be hazardous to your health.

In a world where we already sit in front of small screens, TV or computers, for too many hours, Facebook woos us to sit a little longer, move a little less. My warning for you is that the rewards are easily countered by the time-waster it can be.

And without a lot of detail, I will recommend you don't put something on the stove to cook while you are Facebooking. I gave a complete new meaning to "hard" boiled eggs.

"What's that smell?"

If there is no one to talk to, there are always the goofy quizzes that decide the gemstone you are most like, the country song that most describes you, the type of super hero you'ld be and what level of sarcasm you measure in at.

Personally, I love saying good morning to people I may see only rarely, if at all. Beyond that, my very favorite part is the sharing of photos of all kinds. I watch people’s lives through their photos and feel like we are neighbors.

My mother took the Facebook plunge and found such joy in being in contact with her grandchildren, who like many of us, finally got too busy to email, just after we got too busy write or call. At least now she can see photos of them and know that they indeed, made it past age 16 and right on to their 30s.

Not all my friends are on Facebook yet, so I'm resigned to that old-fashioned email stuff. I do have some yellowing note cards I could use up, but I can never remember how much postage is from month to month. I have a drawer full of one- and two-cent stamps to go with my sheets of Christmas stamps that I never used.

Gotta go. I might be missing something on Facebook!

Julie can be reached for comment at www.facebook.com or jcarternm@gmail.com.

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