I confess. I am enjoying my Facebook experience at last. It is rather like popping in at the neighborhood coffee shop and catching up with the crowd; re-establishing your position in the flock. Twitter is more like being a lost bird trying to find a flock then one of an established group. I last logged in on Twitter over a month ago and yet yesterday I was informed I have another follower. Where do they think I am going?
Blogging on the other hand is more a private conversation if only with yourself. It is more on the level of meeting someone at that coffee shop and say , "Hey, let's go someplace quiet so we can talk." But we live increasingly in a ten second sound byte world. So it is easy to see the popularity of an internet platform which encourages that sort of interaction. And yet in that world there are some interesting "long" discussions.
One status message posted by a friend or one photo which seems to become the "table" around which all gather to make a relevant comment or not. Monday I posted something about my broken van and then a comment was made about the earthquake in Mexico and eventually we were all agreeing that maybe there is a connection between quakes and cars because of the disruption of the magnetic fields. Then we were on to money and whether cars know we have the money to get them fixed. Reminded me a bit of happy hour on Friday after a long week of work.
So is Facebook the virtual happy hour? Coffee with your co-workers in an age when more and more of us are self-employed. Working at home. With our neighborhoods more etheral we collect friends not on where they live but common interests. Like a lamentation of swans we find our flock with a series of honks and head bobs, finding safety in numbers even if they are scattered around the world in a virtual flock.
I have made connections with some old friends from the pre-computer days. Judgement is still out on that. Perhaps they were picked at the time just because of the neighborhood where we no longer live.
3 comments:
What are pre-computer days...Oh right; I sorta remember those myself. But honestly, I rather like my computer friends better. With no need for subterfuge here normally, as you say, we seem to find more compatible friends.
Wasn't there a bit of a crash with facebook a day or so ago? Our nightly news reported a crash with Twitter also.
I just can't seem to get into facebook as much as I try.
I think it's all the things that get sent to you. Everytime I go there, I have 40 or 50 requests for some thing or another.
I agree with everything you have said though. Facebook is the pre-dinner drinks and blogging is the main meal.
Seems I have got stuck at the happy hour with no time for the main meal!
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