Facebook Confessions

My beloved blog readers:

Yes. I know. It's true.

I've been unfaithful and I've strayed from writing you here on the home pages of the PLF for months.

I know this is hard for us both. I miss writing here, too. But I have to confess that my addiction to face book consumes me and has overtaken my regular writing practices and blogging duties. I know you notice because I see you there, too. And I wonder.

I know my virtual face book gifts don't always amuse you and you find them shallow, silly, or just a useless time suck. And you know what? You're absolutely right. I find it shallow, too. Can we really save a rain forest by giving each other elves or an ocean with rainbow fish? Of course not.
Do our status reports always reflect how honestly crappy or uneven we might feel. No.

On the other hand, I have to say, I get gratification from pretending to give you the moon, or kindness, or a wonder woman shoe to throw at President Bush. I get gratification that I have you and FB friends and family even though I don't see them everyday. I get gratification from the illusion of connection, the possibility of creating more visibility for the causes I care about, and witnessing this thin thread that connects us all . You have to admit, there is a certain transparency and odd accountability that gets created by being seen.

Most of all, I get gratification that somehow a tool for social networking contributed significantly to up ending the whole political map and bringing in a new generation of voters.

This will be a hard addiction to break. I know some of you have gotten used to how things are. But I think we're going to have to ask ourselves one day soon, "Is our e-mail dead?" thanks to crack-book and crack-berry. I thought this was a ridiculous question a year ago...and now, I am not so sure. The speed of twitter and FB status updates and getting everybody's personal news has me hooked. I don't know if I'll ever return here...it's just feels easier to share life in sound bites and sharing the moment to moment poses in crazy photos. After all, doesn't liberation happen that way, bit by bit...byte by byte?

For now, please forgive me. I cannot help but stray. I'm not leaving you, my readers, or this practice of writing about pukengkeng liberation in paragraphs and meandering blog entries.
I'm just saying, let's give this facebook migration and electronic diaspora a chance.

People always will come back and look for home and express it in a multitude of creative ways.
The new net natives will show us the way.

Comments