Facebook overload...

Jean-Paul Bunny Lecture Series No. 6:
Facebook get out of my face
Since I retired, I have often think about my former students. What are they doing? What is their occupation? Was I a good or bad influence? Over the years, a few students from each class would seek me out and tell me about their lives. Many students just seemed to disappear and became faint memories.

About a month ago a friend suggested that I join Facebook. He was very excited about the networking possibilities and the rekindling of old friendships and memories. I joined and spent each day building my "page" and adding friends. I got warm messages and felt I was part of new found community. As the days passed I linked and posted in a frenzy. I became obsessed with cramming a thirty-five year teaching career into the bowels of the Facebook world. I posted "clever" replies and received "clever" replies. The little notes reminded me of the personal give and take of the classroom.The number of friends increased! The posting escalated! I had entered a world filled with people pumping out how they felt, what they were doing.

Soon, I noticed a pattern. A few individuals dominated the posting. Their lives were filled with humor, friends, parties, cocktail hours, vacations, successful business adventures, wealth, and good deeds. Their lives were vibrant and exciting! I was posting mundane things like pictures of my cat, my art work and grandchildren. The pages were full of surveys or test to determine what color or painting you were. The IQ test was particularly annoying. You were prodded into taking the test because some in the group are smarter than you . The "pithy" comments and answers became irritating. My meaningless joke about George Clooney caused someone to ask " If I was for real". When I replied in a direct way concerning the nature of reality, I was told to "relax". I did not realize that someone who makes a living acting like some one else is a "sacred cow" Needless to say the individuals involved found this little philosophic discussion trivial. That is the problem with Facebook and similar social networking sites they all trivialize intellectual discourse.

I plan to slowly extract myself from FB and return to my boring life. I hope all my old friends and new found friends will keep in touch with personal emails, some snail mail or best of all a personal visit.

P.S. You can always find me here - engaged in intellectual discourse.

Copyright 2009 © Ronald D. Isom, Sr.
Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.
Vladimir Nabokov