Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Tuesday Triviality!

Check out this article about social networking---leave your comments afterward:

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I think there is a difference between real time face friends and cyber friends in terms of level of interaction but in the end what matters is the sharing. We have become a world of people who don't connect or have much empathy or interest in others. If technology can help eliminate some of that - isn't that a good thing?

Anonymous said...

"For many people — particularly anyone over the age of 30 — the idea of describing your blow-by-blow activities in such detail is absurd. Why would you subject your friends to your daily minutiae? And conversely, how much of their trivia can you absorb? The growth of ambient intimacy can seem like modern narcissism taken to a new, supermetabolic extreme — the ultimate expression of a generation of celebrity-addled youths who believe their every utterance is fascinating and ought to be shared with the world."

I'm over 30 and so the above sums up my beliefs about this.

The majority of my Facebook friends are family (that's why I started up on Facebook - to keep in touch with family. How's that working out for you? Yeah, not so much.) and I have friended my Mom. So that ensures a small level of self-censorship on anything I put on there. My adult daughters? Probably not.

Certainly, the cyber world has opened up far more possibilities than would have otherwise been possible. For example, my second marriage is to someone I met via the internet.

I've also made many acquaintances via the world wide web that otherwise would not have occurred.

But that's off the topic of "I'm so totally, digitally close to you." The bulk of the social scientist observances on modern day social networking via the web I, frankly, don't get.

I'll admit that when I've seen one of my Facebook friends doing a heavy amount of Facebook interaction I start to worry about their level of addiction and what bad things are going on in their lives.

Rob

Stella said...

Interesting article.

I think I'm too old for that type of constant influx of information about my friends! LOL! It seems like that would be exhausting. I leave Facebook to my kids. Guess I am sort of a cyber-hermit. :)

Anonymous said...

Hey kid...I am proud of my vice president grandson...oh well. No one should be surprised.

I'm 69 and I do not do face book. Not because I think it is a drag but because even in retirement I do not have the time to keep in touch with poeple I have met all over USA, Russia, Israel, Bolivia, Guatamala, China, Hong Kong, and lets dont forget Arkansas.

I have tried to teach my children and my fellow pastors the importance of networking. I do not care what form it may take. Maybe, just maybe I will start. I am old enough now that perhaps I could locate some of my buddies whom I thought should have died long ago and didn't.

Do you think that one day the tech people could help us locate our departed friends? No, I know where some of them are and I'm not interested in going there even through the net.

All I am saying is...do what you do to promote yourself and keep in touch with your fiends. The only problem I see with facebook is that...If you are ever going to be employed...your boss may facebook you before hiring you and their could be stuff you have written that could stop the position from happening...I wonder what I could find out about Obama and Palan?

Marsha said...

oh my goodness--I have the tremendously amazingly cool dad------who would have thought....