Being "wired" to your friends, neighbors, and even scant acquaintances has its advantages.
For antisocial misanthropes like me, networking on the Internet (my tool of choice is Facebook) keeps me aware that there are, in fact, other people in the world. Who knew? In my own neighborhood, even. People who are related to me, went to high school or college with me, and who, inexplicably, even care about me.
And the more caring we express about each other, the more caring we feel. Social networking builds friendships. Keeping up with one another via the tools on the internet overcomes the embarrassment we shy folk might have over, for instance, walking up to a former high school classmate and saying, "Happy Birthday."
Not that we even had a clue when our high school classmates' birthdays were, until Facebook's Birthday Calendar app came along.
It's kind of cool—in fact, it's very cool—to know that a person you liked 20 years ago and still like very much now, is going to Disneyworld, and when she gets back, and whether she had fun. You can go to her Facebook page and say, "Drive safe!" "Say 'Hi' to Mickey for me!" "Glad you're back—how was sunny Florida?" It makes you feel more a part of your community. You are reminded that, before you had children and vanished into a giant laundry pile or a workday cubicle, you were a kid, with pals. You and these pals had fun together. I barely remember these halcyon days, but lately, on Facebook, it's all coming back to me. I am not just a mom. I am a person. I was a girl. I had a life!
Until Facebook, my homeboys and homegirls and I were all a bunch of zombie chauffeurs, driving our kids to endless sports and saying "Hey, wassup" in the Subway line and at church and in Food City, like ships, or frantic speedboats, passing in the night.
Now we have Facebook, and we're connected. I know when my best friend when I was 5 years old has the flu. I know when my best friend when I was 15 years old goes on a trip. I know when the guy who played guitar in the rock band that I followed around when I was 20 is playing in a bar in Chicago. I know what's up with all of them—the big news, anyhow. Promotions, divorces, diseases, divorces that are indistinguishable from diseases. And they know my big news. Using Facebook's photo albums app, we know what one another's children look like. Mine are much better looking than any of theirs.
Now some of my chums have gone a step further with the internet networking thing, and have signed up for Twitter. Twitter enables you to tell all of your friends precisely what you are up to, all the time. They get updates on you, either via email, or on their mobile phones.
I am not sure I am ready for this. I am not sure my friends are ready for this.
My "tweets" coming from Twitter might sound more like painful squawks. Gripes. Or ugly, private revelations. The real, straight "dope" on what the Old Woman in the Shoe is up to, hour by hour, is not something anybody really wants to know, do they?
Shoedame is flossing her teeth for the first time in months.
Shoedame is overcome with self-loathing.
Shoedame shoved all the clean laundry under her bed so she wouldn't have to fold it.
Shoedame is facing another bout of chronic constipation.
Shoedame is suspecting that the entire legal system only exists so that rich men can get their Mercedes payments in on time.
Shoedame is buying chocolate which she intends to hide from her children.
Shoedame is evading all of her real-life responsibilities in order to waste an hour on Facebook and delude all of her cyber-friends into thinking she is doing something productive.
My tweeting friends are not posting anything like this. Their tweets are very intimidating, in fact. So far, all of my friends who are on Twitter seem to have amazingly productive and pure lives. Their tweets sound like broadcasts from heaven:
Johnnie is building a house with Habitat for Humanity.
Johnnie is feeling chipper after a great, uplifting concert by Kids Need Food.
Johnnie is planting a tree, because the world needs more trees.
Johnnie is psyched about another workweek. YEAH!
Not:
Johnnie wishes more than anything his wife would shut up and leave him alone.
Of course, if Johnnie put that in his Twitter update line, he would then need to go to Facebook and change his status from "In a Relationship" to "Single," once the real truth appeared on his wife's mobile phone.
So it turns out that, even in our Twitterpated world, hourly updates on Johnnie may be telling me just as much as the occasional "Hey, what's up?" "Nothin' much" in Subway, while he's just rushing back from taking his son to baseball and I'm in a rush to get my daughter to volleyball. The truth is, we're both frail human wrecks who are victims of
1) our drive to reproduce;
2) our need to make sure that our kids do all the same things other kids do, all day, every day; and
3) our complete inability to pay for it.
Plus the simple fact that any people, anytime, anywhere, who try to maintain a long-term relationship or marriage suffer and struggle mightily in the attempt, and miserably fail as often as they succeed.
But we can't post any of that on Twitter every hour, or on Facebook every day. We can't be that honest, in public, at all. So we underplay our bad stuff and broadcast our good stuff. Which is competely healthy and normal. And if all I know is the "big news" on 75 of my favorite people, it's a lot more than what I knew about them two years ago.
And I do hope my homegirl and her crew get to Disneyworld and back okay, and that they have a good time, whatever a "good time" is. The super thing about being on the same wire is, all the birdies are perched on it together, squawking whatever it is we squawk, good/bad true/false. But we're all wired together, sending messages of support—life is hard; hang in there, oh those on my fabulous Friend List. Be strong. Remember, first and foremost, who you are. Who you were, before all the crushing responsibilities of life piled on your shoulders.
Remember when we were alive, and childless, how we laughed? Let's laugh today, if only over a stupid clip from Youtube. For just five minutes, let's channel our inner children and remember why we became friends. And if you ever want to give me the real story of what's ever going on with you on the inside while you build that Habitat house, let's get together, face to face, and spill our guts.
While both parties are continuing to study ways of making broadband access affordable and sustainable, we have reached the conclusion that the only way to make progress is to engage more people in the process. To that end, we are inviting everyone to participate by communicating (using the contact link on the left) their Internet access desires and their willingness to invest intellectually, physically and (gulp!) financially.
