Facebook Fast

I realize not everyone may be living in the dark ages, by choice, as I do much of the time. I have long preferred a long hand letter (complete with a wax seal), record player, typewriter and paper journals to their counterparts. With that said, I love the Internet and still do not have a land line, currently. I aim for a balance and an act of moderation in our home (including my own time spent online). To be honest, I don't fall on the purest side of the equation but I also don't have any idea how to sync my iPhone. The side of me that tends to fall more on the conservative side of technology has some thoughts on the matter...

I wonder if my young child could (god forbid) call 911 on my cell should the need arise.
I have thought about his little brain--little hands next to the big satellite while he talks or plays on my phone (which totals, maybe 30 minutes per week).

Will my children call me when they are in their later 20's-early 30's? Tweens and teens?
Will my children know how to express emotions other than via emoticons? ;)
Will my children understand privacy? That strangers are dangerous, even behind a screen?
Will my children be isolated via the web? Will they be too busy creating their online selves that they no longer take honest moral inventories on who they really are?
Will my children know that life is not composed of abbrv's or life in a phrase?
You get the idea.

The world is changing. I am trying to keep up.
Technology is great. It teaches our children, and, in moderation and within safe and proper contexts, I think that is a fabulous thing. It even saves lives.
I have long wondered, however, if the Internet, and other tools of technology, have the potential of killing life.

I took a Facebook sabbatical. I deactivated my account for less than a month. I am not even sure if my absence counts as such. Try it. Deactivate your Facebook. I dare you.
Just-point-click-close. Why not? I don't know. But you do...

It is my conviction that the Internet has the potential to create a very dangerous, very false sense of community. Whatever your vice may be, whatever your choice of interaction, reaction, action or relationship...the Internet is two dimensional at best. What we are doing"with" each other--we are actually doing without each other.

Communication is made up of 7% verbal (in this case written) and 93% nonverbal body language.
Now, words are my life. I understand that not all people share the passion of the true sentence, the true word... simply put, I read the 1828 edition of the Noah Webster's Dictionary when I can't sleep.
Words matter. I get it, I really do. But words,  I finally resolve, are-not-everything. Words, alone, are not life. Words are not the living. Words are 7%, and I want my children to grow with the knowledge that talking is not just words. I want them to know that true communication is listening, watching, and being present.

According to CNN, better than 90% of kids under the age of two have an online history. By age 5, more than 50% regularly use a device to access the Internet.

Research that studies how the Internet changes life is still in it's early stages, but it shows that regular Internet usage changes the way our brains work. I repeat, frequent use of the Internet shows (both for adults and children) a change in the way our brains function. In some children, this change in brain function, has been linked to: limited attention spans, lower comprehension, poor focus, greater risk for depression, and a diminished long-term memory.
If I am honest with myself, I have probably experienced the same list mentioned above.

Yes, I have a life. And I really do. But I felt left out once I deactivated my Facebook account. I even felt alone at times when I would have--otherwise--been scrolling through the news feed or checking information on group pages. (Don't judge me until you take me up on my dare.) I had to, had to ask myself-who-are-my-friends? BTW (pun intended) you know who you are. I could count on two hands who my friends are in this last 3 weeks but I have hundreds on Facebook.

Have we forgotten what defines friendship on some level? Do we send Valentine's to our mothers?  Even email is antiquated these days. I just real life lol. Email is antiquated.

You know what makes me really real life lol? "Facebook security."
Have you googled yourself? Your name that "safely" hovers over your child's pictures, even in a tagged post? LOL. LOL. LOL. Google yourself. It opened my eyes as I read the town in which I live, my parent's names, husband's name, his sister's name and where she lives (and has lived). The real kicker was when I googled her name and got information about her husband's family, sister, brother-in-law...
LOL.
It took 5 clicks to get to my husband's brother's wife's mother's information. And she lives in another state--along with her son and his wife...
For a small monthly fee you could have someone's credit history. Facebook security?
L-O-friggin' ELLLLL.

Who a person is, who a person has always been, is who they are behind closed doors. Who a person is, who a person has always been, is not who they are in Facebook phrases. We see each other in glimpses like passing on the street. I am honest with the things I say in updates (even though cryptic, at times), but what do you know (or care) if I am lying?

I do trust the people in my friends list. Ones that I may not be in regular contact with are still good people. I am not afraid that everyone who did not call me in the last few weeks are the boogey man.  But honestly, it may be more accurately stated to say (with many of my 'friends') that I trusted them when I knew them in waking life. But who are they now? The truth is that I have not even so much as run in to many of them in the last 10 years, but I have given them an open window in to my life.
Then. I. Am. Awake.

It is no secret that the media dictates and sets the pace for fashions, trends, even mascara. I may not be one to care about jeans, bags or Ulta...but I am, by choice, a victim of commercialism in many other ways. This post is not to judge anyone who has an intimate affair with life via satellite or a love for Coach. But, is it possible that the bar has now been raised and our ways of communication directed by the waves of the man-in-the-moon himself? Will we all fade in to a background via updates?

Don't get me wrong...I like Facebook. I will continue to use it. I even tweet (lol--ok, I'm done now).

But I have to ask myself if this use of the Internet has dictated what I once would never have dreamed of sharing behind my cloak. Has the Internet encouraged me to share what I wear behind my glasses with--the world? And all because it's "safe?"
For example, sharing pictures of my kids (which I recently stopped posting), thoughts of mine on many things...this blog...
The Internet made me brave, I suppose you could say. Isn't that sad and wonderful? The Internet is it's own cloak. Who are you reading this? I don't know, but you know me. Getting the picture?

According to several news sites (but I have only noted one in the bibliography of this post, since it was so prevalent) the world spends  per day per day per day PER DAY on Facebook... 10.5 billion minutes. This average did not include time spent on phones. This is also according to the company of Facebook's IPO filing (10.5 billion minutes) per day.

Now, that seems silly to me. I live in a small town, in a relatively small house, with two small children. So let's make this small. (Like I said, wonder with words, eh?)
Let's just say someone were to spend 5 minutes at a time on Facebook to scroll the news feed, reply to a message, re-read a comment (you know you have) or check for 'likes' (don't even lie).
Let's say that they did this simple thing, for 5 minutes, 10 times in a 24 hour time period. Let's say, they did this 7 days a week, for 4 weeks. That's 1,400 minutes a month.
That-is-twenty-three point three (23.3) hours of life, on average a month, that that person will spend on Facebook.
Some of us "conservative" Internet users may, on average, per month, spend near one day of life on Facebook. Fakebook?

Now point-click-close-and go call your mother.

********************************************************************************

Laird, Sam. "Is Social Media Destroying Real-World Relationships? [INFOGRAPHIC]." Mashable June 14, 2012. 16 December 2012 <http://mashable.com>.

Clinton, Chelsea, Steyer, James P. "Is the Internet hurting Children?" CNN Opinion 21 May 2012. 16 December 2012 <http://www.cnn.com>.

30 Something Prose

30 Something was a show on television I remember my mother watching when I was young...and she was 30 something. She is now 50 something, and I find myself nearing the 30's.
I keep hearing nothing but wonderful things about 30 something.
 Please, don't judge the lack of grammar or correct punctuation, the lack of order in thought or the emotional canvass. I am not trying to impress, which is, in part, a part of the 30's, I hear.

Ironically the only time I have never been self-conscious in a bathing suit was this past summer. I had an almost two-year-old boy and was 8 months pregnant. And for the first time, I really didn't give a hoot about the cover-up. That day was about playing in the pool and being stained by the sun...finally.

For many reasons, the last few months have had my head swimming with the most haunting question, perhaps, that all humans face in their lifetime: "What if?"

I have thought about my childhood friendships and all that they taught me. Becky, on Lafayette, well bless her heart. I taught her how to climb a tree only to leave her there once the street lights came on; and, she was still my friend the next day. I thought about my dog. It made me cry, actually, when I realized he had probably died years and years ago. Our brains rationalize, don't they? Why wouldn't I, at the mature age of almost 30, have realized my dog probably died?

 I believe that God let that dog live through being hit by a truck, eating a bag of poison so his blood became so thick it wouldn't even move through his body, and getting stung by an entire wasps nest. I repeat, he lived. And back to my believing...well, I believe that God let that dog live because he was the only thing constant about my childhood. My dog. My dog was, in the end, the only thing that stayed the same...until my parents got rid of him when I was in middle school, which, made sense. Anyway, he died. It made me sad to almost 30 something realize that death is a part of everyone's life.
Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the realization that I am not immortal. Well, I am, but not in the physical sense. I think the realization, the deep-down knowing that I, too, will die, like so many close to me have...well, it makes you wonder what the heck you are doing today.

I know it's just a birthday. I know it's a wonderful birthday. I don't know why, I guess, this one seems like the first, and possibly, the only birthday that should really count for something.

I want my children to know what God taught me in my generation and those that went before them. I want to know why the world is going paperless; and, I want to know why I have a growing passion to remain the woman with a wax seal on my longhand letters, record player and tobacco pipe. I want my children to know that there is one-true-God and that believing that will offend many people. I want them to know that it was not their mother that said so, but rather, Jesus Christ himself.
I want my children to know what their great-grandparents were like, the America they fought for,  and the importance of living diligently and sober minded. I want my children to know the importance of working hard and sleeping hard...sometimes with sand on your feet if you get the chance. In fact, sleep with sand on your feet every chance you get.
I don't know...but 30 something feels like a new life both in a daunting and a glorious way.
Perhaps you can relate...

It feels like a crowded street in a rain storm, the way my mind has  been reeling the last few weeks. It's as though you recognize every face and recall every story attached to them...but in the end, you can see the aerial view of black umbrellas and you want to be the red one...

Amidst 30 black umbrellas, you want to be the red.
I hope that I am the red umbrella.