I have rarely used FB in the past and have been quite resistant to establishing a page for myself. I think that many users share far too much personal information (I am tres conservative in this regard), but being on a couple of paper crafting design teams mandated a rethink of my position and the consequential rejuvenation of my FB page, at least for the first six months of this year...I find I am now learning to navigate my way around the various structures with a bit more confidence and am enjoying some of the aspects of sharing communications with folk I simply would not have been able to "meet" in any other way.
It is a good forum, I admit, for keeping touch with family and friends who live or travel in more distant areas, sharing photographs, keeping updated with the personal events of families with whom one would otherwise only have a more limited discourse, that sort of thing...probably my main negative is the time it can take out of the day...reading about and interacting vicariously in others events takes one away from the events of one's own life, the doing, creating and interacting on a more immediate and personal level...just living in the here and now.
Maybe it is my age, but the events of the moment are important to me...I love to lose myself in a book but I don't want to spend hours peeking into others lives while sitting at my computer. Also, communicating through social media is not at all like real life. There is none of the advantages of face to face communication...we only see a one dimensional portrait of the person we are interacting with, it is all their own disclosure. We are not able to fully use our assessment skills and interpersonal experiences to develop the relationship and our knowledge of the other person...it all has to be taken at "Face" value...
For many years in my professional life, assessing people across a very wide spectrum of parameters and outcomes was an intrinsic and essential part of my work. The success of my ability to do so gave me the career and rewards that I achieved during that time. Because of this, it is probably not surprising that I am now made rather uneasy at the limitations of these social forums that I find myself more engaged with now my reduced mobility has effectively curtailed my active social interaction of past years.
Conversely though, it is this very dichotomy of feeling about social media which interests me enormously...I think that the way we now communicate will bring significant change to whole aspects of our social structures...already does so in fact. Therefore, I look at my conversations and exchanges within FB with a great deal of interest, also the way some people express an acceptance of this social exchange as inevitable within their lives, as if the quick response, the cuteness and wit of the available graphics and the speed of interconnectedness is their benchmark for living a valid life...I am finding all this very interesting...it is certainly giving me plenty to think about! Meanwhile, I am off to make some cards and write a few letters for the post...in light of all that I was just SO pleased to receive these two fabulous cards from grandsons Nicholas and Wyatt this morning...both had written lovely long personal messages and reading them really made my day.
Thank you all so much, I have had a great birthday this year.
Bye
D