Facebook

My Facebook account says that I have 68 "friends". As much as I like and or admire many of the people on the list, most are not "friends" as I define the term. I have never had 68 friends (at least all at once). Some of us kept up with some high school and undergraduate or graduate school friends but I doubt many people would say that their social circle outside of the Internet is as wide as Facebook would have us believe. The nice thing about Facebook is that you can often rekindle an old friendship (at least with a keyboard) and share some photographs and a laugh or two.

My best friend - who is not a Facebook participant - has remained my best friend since 1982. He and I have moved around the country a few times over the years and months sometimes go by before we speak to each other or see each other in person. We've watched each other, sometimes from a long distance, find romantic love, struggle with career dilemmas, celebrate births, mourn those who have died and confide in each other things that we might not even tell his wife or my partner.

My fear about Facebook and other social networking sites is not for me or my best friend. My fear is for kids that cannot remember a time when there was no text messaging, twitter, Facebook, My Space, etc. and will go through their entire lives at arm's length from being a physical part of their communities and will be unable to forge friendships that don't involve technology. No more handwritten thank you cards, no more holiday phone calls or visits and no more amusing stories of how a couple met bumping carts in a supermarket. Maybe I am overstating things a little bit, but I think it would be very sad if those random moments were rendered meaningless unless the person was on your list of "friends". I suppose I sound old and anti-technology. I'm not. I just hope that the high school dance won't be replaced with some Internet forum with some webcam device that lets people dance in the comfort of their own homes without actually being with anyone.