Real or Not Real

Last week I met up with a friend I hadn't seen since my sister's wedding 8 years ago.  We used to meet her and her sister every school morning at the end of their road and all cycle off together to school. Often we saw each other both weekend days as well, in the dance group of which we were all part.  Her husband was in my class - not while he was her husband, I hasten to add.  All of this to illustrate how much we used to see each other and how involved we were with each other's lives.

And then I moved away to England to university and I maybe saw her about 6 times since 1994. So it was so great to catch up again and to spend the morning together.  It was particularly special to meet each other's kids and just brilliant to see them run off and play together happily. 

Here's the thing though: we hadn't seen each other for 8 years, yet we are connected almost every day, on Facebook.  I see pictures of her kids frequently and have asked her advice on issues I face with my boys, as one of hers is a few years older and she is further down that road!  She was one of the very first people to congratulate me on the pregnancy of my second son after I posted that I had 2 heartbeats, much to the excitement of some Dr Who fans. (No, me neither until someone explained...)

So it was quite an odd dynamic, to have not seen one another really for so long, yet at the same time be quite up to date on each other's lives.  I knew that her husband is looking for a new job and that her brother's wife is about to have a baby. I knew that her other brother recently got engaged and have seen pictures of his (beautiful)  fiance.  She knew that Andrew travels a lot for his job and that we had recently been to France. It was kind of odd! We didn't need to have the huge catch up chat about where we now live or what jobs we are in... In many ways it was like we see each other often and it was much more relaxed and easy going than it might have been had we had to reconnect all over again.

On the other hand, there were things that you just don't get from Facebook.  I have never spoken to any of her kids, and I really enjoyed chatting about books with her oldest boy. He is working his way through the Harry Potter series and I have just started my bi-annual reread thereof...  So we had a great natter about this, and I loved it!  

And there are things that you don't put on Facebook.  It is not the place where I am the most vocal about my faith, so she could have been forgiven for not being sure if that was something with which I still engaged. It was great to chat about that and there was other family stuff that we shared, that wouldn't be Facebook-appropriate either. (That makes it sound much more dramatic and scandalous than anything we actually discussed...)


It's a funny one!  Facebook's ostensible raison d'être is to let you 'connect with friends and the world around you.' The wider media often talks about Facebook friends being 'friends' and posits that it isolates people and stunts friendships. An article I read in the Guardian asked: 'does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk?' The suggestion further down in this article is that people now think that the more 'friends' you have, the better you are - that people aim to engage in quantity rather than quality of friendships.  

Personally, I don't know anyone who uses Facebook in that way.  Perhaps this is age-related and maybe 'yoofs' are amassing huge numbers of friends and feeling like they are very popular this way. Very few of my friends have an absurd number of 'friends' and they seem to me, as an outside, and occasionally nosy, observer, to genuinely connect with people rather than just garner hangers on to feel good about themselves. As someone who has lived in a few different countries, it has allowed me to stay connected with people I genuinely know.  In all honesty, I would be unlikely to email, phone or write to them. But here is an easy and often fun way to (re)connect and share with them. 

Friends is a big word to apply to absolutely everyone with whom we are connected in this way, of course.  It is quite a loaded word and has perhaps been devalued since the dawn of social media.  But I absolutely disagree with the suggestion that Facebook disconnects us from people. I can think of a few people that I see frequently, whom I have got to know better since being connected to on Facebook. It turned out that we had more in common than we realised, things that we might not have got round to chatting about, and it has genuinely enriched rather than impoverished a new acquaintanceship. 

I am not suggesting that it substitutes real life connections and that someone sitting alone all day sharing and posting to friends on Facebook is as good as meeting a few pals for a coffee.  Of course it's not!  But it's surely equally ludicrous to suggest that connecting to people on social media will somehow diminish your real life contact with them. Unless you are genuinely a hermit who has 2000 Facebook friends and no real ones - but this is surely not representative of the majority? Or do I just happen to have sensible friends and have a very rose-tinted view of the whole phenomenon?

Meeting up with my old schoolfriend was fantastic and could never have been substituted by a Facebook chat, clearly.  However, I would say that our connection on Facebook added hugely to the likelihood of us getting together to begin with and to the quality of the time we spent. We both commented on the unusual dynamic of feeling like we had very little catching up to do, although this wasn't really entirely true.  It was in many ways a shortcut, and one that was good and helpful.  And a tiny bit weird...

And anyone who gets the reference in the title of this post gets promoted instantly to bff, on Facebook and in real life.

Lurkers, Likers and Other Facebook Species

So, Facebook. At this point, most people are on it, aren't they? Not everyone, admittedly.  Like, not my Dad. But I think he would actually enjoy Facebook, as a Lurker/Liker (see further down). But almost everyone else.  At this stage many people not on Facebook, are virulently anti-Facebook. Like a lady I recently asked. She is someone who I see as a potential friend, but we don't get to see much of each other. Perfect for a Facebook link, surely... We can get glimpses of each other's lives and comment and share accordingly. But her response when I asked if she was on Facebook was almost comical! You would have been forgiven for thinking I had asked her if she regularly took cocaine. 'No!' she exclaimed in horror, 'and I never will be!' 

It never ceases to amaze me how radio stories or newspaper columns which mention social media seem to be hosted or written by people who have no clue about it! They often imply that you are opening yourself up to having your whole life exposed and your security compromised by using it. If you based your view of Facebook on the news, and had no other experience with it, you would probably think it was for folk who liked connecting with hundreds of people they didn't actually know in real life, giving a wildly unrealistic impression of their daily lives and engaging in a fair amount of cyber-bullying. And getting fired all the time for posting things about their job. Yes, of course all those things do happen, but in a limited way, surely, and only because Facebook can't prevent stupid people from using its services.

I recently read an article which asked the question if social media is leading to further isolation of people, or in fact, lessening this isolation. One quote which really struck a chord with me was comparing someone's perception of social media with that of tv: '... if all you watch is reality TV, you might come to the conclusion that it’s a shallow form of media. But if you change the channel, there’s the History Channel or the Discovery Channel, and all of a sudden your perception is very different.' (http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/campuslife/social-media-doesnt-mean-social-isolation) That is a brilliant example! Just like with tv, social media is as good or as bad as the people consuming it.

Well, I am a huge fan. I have found Facebook a brilliant addition to other socialising. Not a replacement, but a great extra. I am in touch with people that I do know in real life, absolutely. But these are in many cases people I used to work with or went to university with. I wouldn't get to see them often and wouldn't be likely to email or phone them. But I love seeing what they are doing in their lives and being connected with them. In one case, this is someone I have never actually met.  But she is a friend of a friend, and in an online discussion of books, it became apparent that we have a ridiculous amount of tastes and thoughts in common. With the notable exceptions of sewing and the Tour de France. I feel like I could meet her for a coffee, which makes her pretty much a genuine friend, even if we haven't officially met.  Except it would almost certainly end up being lunch and dinner as well.

It is fascinating to me how people use Facebook differently! I think it's safe to say that some people are very good at Facebook. The friend I have who is one of the best at it is someone I last spent time with as a teenager, when we both lived in Holland. Now she lives in Philadelphia and I live in Ireland. Yet I see pictures of her kids almost every day and laugh out loud (but only using the 'lol' acronym ironically of course) at their brilliant phrases and jokes. I love that we can keep in touch so easily! She posts a lot, but not too much - as the content is generally witty, well phrased and real. She is SWGF: Someone Who Gets Facebook. 

Here are a few other users:
The Lurker: I have quite a few friends who I just assume don't bother to log on and check their posts, ever. That is, until I meet them in a different context, and they say: 'Oh, how did Matthew get on at his goalie camp?' Or 'Your holiday looked terrific!' and it turns out they read absolutely every last post but never ever comment on anything. Or even like anything.

The Liker: They share certain Lurker characteristics - they rarely post anything themselves, but enjoy reading what others share. The difference is that they join in to an extent, by liking things they have found good.  I am not sure why they never post anything themselves, but at least they aren't hiding, like the Lurkers.

A sub-species is the Periodic Liker. This is someone who is only ever on Facebook every 14 days or so and then has a frenzy of liking all kinds of things that have happened in that time. You suddenly get a mad influx of notifications, all from one person liking things you posted ages ago. I have a friend who does this - she has two very young kids and I guess she just literally doesn't have the head space or time to check Facebook very often, however she does like updating herself with what is happening, but in catch up mode.

Another sub-species to the Liker is the Gullible Liker. This is someone who likes all kinds of crap. You know the posts I mean: 'Like this if you think bullying is A Bad Thing.' 'I know only 10% of my friends will bother to read this, so Like this to show that you are one of the good people in life and that you think flowers are nice.' Or something. You know the kind of stuff...  I personally don't understand how anyone could think that liking something on a website will end world hunger or child abuse or whatever. Maybe I am missing something! Some of these are funny, see below, but I think we can all agree that there is an awful lot of dross out there!

Of course even worse than the Gullible Liker is the Gullible Sharer - less is more sometimes! But then I guess it depends what you are in to and someone else's dross is my amusement and vice versa... Perhaps half of those on my friends list have limited what they see from me cause they think I share and post way too much rubbish. But here's the thing - more power to them! It's so easy to change settings and vary what you see from people that I guess it doesn't really matter what they like or share. 

 A personal bugbear of mine is the Text Speak Poster. This is someone who hasn't quite worked out that phones no longer limit you to a tiny amount of characters and that No1 txts like dis NEmor unless dey R well over 40.  Never mind posts like this on Facebook. Please stop.

So who are you on Facebook? A Lurker? A Liker? A Periodic or a Gullible Liker? A Gullible Sharer? A Text Speak Poster? Or, as I am sure you all are, or hope you are at any rate: SWGF. 

Have I missed any categories? And can we all agree that the first picture below is cute, but the second one is genius?

Blogtastic

It's easy to forget that anyone could read this!  I have tended to forget that I don't control who has access to this, like you can on Facebook.  You can see how many people have read each blog post but not who they are.  It's annoying that people can't leave comments without having a google account - it limits the responses you get, which in turn makes it easy to forget that people are reading this!

A recent entry made me think hard about this. It's one thing to be honest and open about myself, but it's different when I am talking about people I know; things they have said to me, opinions they hold... Caution and sensitivity are required, but if I am over-conscious of other people as I type, then I won't be able to say what I really want to, which undermines the whole point of the blog. It's a pickle and a tightrope I will continue to walk as a novice blogger.

I met a friend in Tesco today and we had a brief chat. As we parted she told me to keep up the blog and that it was good.  How encouraging was that! And how unexpected - I didn't know she had been reading it! Another friend told me that she had been reading it as well - I didn't think she even knew I had been dabbling in blogging. But a mutual friend told her and mailed her the link and she was also supportive.

It's an odd thing really - to fire words into the internet, with no particular theme or visible audience. It becomes a kind of diary or stream of consciousness. So it's good to be reminded that at least 2 people are reading it!

so why not?

In the past few months, about 4 people separately have suggested that I start a blog.  I think this is based on Facebook statuses and the fact that I listen to the radio a lot.  I can't take credit for the former really, as those that are generally 'liked' a lot are quotes from my boys.  They really do come up with those all by themselves! And I can't really take credit for the radio either.

So I am not sure what I have to offer here, but I have recently finished up my job outside the home, so why not give this a go?

Many blogs seem to have a clear theme or a project.  A friend is blogging about her house build in Finland, another about her life working in a clinic in Sierra Leone, another about recipes and crafts.  I feel kind of unfocussed as I start this. I suppose I will take a while to find my voice, never mind any kind of 'audience'.  I hope it will help me reflect on things I read or hear and I imagine a theme will develop...

So that was my first blog. First of many?