Facebook is for friends (and so much more!)

Since someone on Facebook brought me back to this blog, I thought I would post a little about Facebook tonight. Funny enough, I am writing this post right now because I cannot get onto Farmville at the moment, so let's hope by the time I'm done here, I will be able to get on.

Yes, I am a Farmville junkie. Oh, I intentionally avoided it for months because I couldn't imagine it would be "fun" or "interesting". What would be fun about so-called farming an imaginary farm? I don't have any interest in farming an ACTUAL farm, so what's in it for me? It was only out of sheer and utter boredom that I finally gave it a chance, and I was essentially hooked from the word go. For those who don't play, just understand that it's more than just imaginary farming. It's interacting with your Facebook friends (as farming "neighbors"), it's meeting NEW friends (some of whom I consider great friends now), and it's definitely a perfect way to waste time on harmless, mindless fun. We just decorated and celebrated Thanksgiving on our farms, and now comes the Christmas holiday! This is my favorite time, because there are so many things you can buy, win, and get to decorate with. You can turn your little piece of internet land into a winter wonderland :)

But Farmville isn't why I Facebook. I Facebook because I love to see what other people are doing. For someone who has spent a LOT of time stuck in the house because of my back injury (and for awhile, being car-less), it makes me feel connected to people I care about, even when I can't be. It's been so fun to find and reconnect with people I haven't seen or talked to in over ten years. Some people I have known since elementary school, or longer.

I think I have found almost everyone I grew up in the neighborhood with. I keep having these grandiose plans about getting all of us together for dinner and drinks sometime, but the realist in me recognizes that, in the days of full time jobs, husbands, multiple kids, and trying to find time just to SHOWER most days, it would be next to impossible to get a dozen girls together for a couple of hours. But I can dream, right?

It has been such a treat to see how everyone has "grown up", where they are, what they're up to, and thinking of all of us as moms, wives, husbands, fathers...it's crazy. But, the truth of the matter is, none of us have changed very much. Those of us who were kind, careful, thoughtful, and generous as kids still are all of those things. Those of us who were adventurous, free spirited, independent, and maybe a little crazy as kids still are all those things, too. Those of us who laughed hard, laughed loud, and laughed often as kids still do, today.

I am now the mother of an (almost) 12 year old who regularly begs me to let him create a Facebook account. He has tried every tactic. He tells me that "everyone" has one. That he's the "only one" who doesn't. That he just wants one for Farmville. So forth and so on. Maybe I'm a hard ass because I won't give in yet. But I just don't think a 12 year old needs a Facebook. Who does he need to catch up with? Who has he lost touch with? Who is he trying to network with? I know that he doesn't think of it that way, but that really is what Facebook was created for. Right now, it's just the allure of something he wants, but doesn't have. Maybe the mystery will wear off, once he turns 13 and finally gets one.

Or, maybe like the rest of us, he'll be hooked from day one. And maybe the friendships he creates now on Facebook will last him for decades, and he won't HAVE to lose his childhood friends, like we did. Maybe Facebook will become the way you STAY in contact with friends, for his generation, the way it has become the way you get BACK in contact with friends, for our generation. Like all great things, it will change and adept with the times and needs of the masses. I guess we'll see in ten or twenty years.