I cringed today when a coworker told me she “doesn’t have time” for things like Facebook or hanging out on the Internet. Like hanging out on the Internet is a bad thing.
I blog enough about my family time, but I don’t talk much about my online time and my Internet relationships. I feel a need to confess something here.
I am addicted to the Internet. Seriously addicted. And not in a bad way, either.
Through social networking sites, I have reconnected to childhood friends. That in itself is a miraculous thing. Someone you knew and loved way back in second grade comes back into your life when you are in your 50’s and she’s every bit as funny and wonderful as the little girl you remember. I don’t mean just one person: there have been several. And every one of them has enriched my life this past year.
I joined social networking groups to keep in touch with my kids. It’s a great way to view baby photos, get the newest and latest video upload of the youngest grandson learning to say “da-da” (Kaci titled it, “Justin said his first swear word”). I need to get a camera and download Skype so we can really keep in touch.That is one of my New Year’s Resolution: Skype.
Most of my “friends” on Facebook are actually professionals who work in the same industry I do: real estate sales. I am not an agent, but my contacts are. I have formed some fast friendships within the company I work for just through Facebook. I put names to faces.
It is an amazing world, the Internet. I even have friends that I have made through Facebook or my blog, that have nothing to do with my “real life” – but we have something in common that brought us together through the Internet.
I think the most wonderful thing about it is that I can press a few keys and express myself eloquently (or as eloquent as I will ever get) and you all think I am a clever, friendly, open person when in reality – in real life – I stutter, stammer, and generally fall over myself in social ineptitude. I don’t talk on the phone if I can avoid it. The other wonderful thing about this media is this: you get the real me, not the facade. In real life, the persona you meet in the form of me is usually an act, someone I have to be for the moment. I rarely let my walls down.
But I am not just addicted to the social network site. I have a serious addiction to some online “lists” through Yahoogroups. I joined the lists when we got our very first computer, back in the mid 1990’s. 1997, I believe, but archives don’t go back that far. I have friends from all over the world through those lists, women (and some men) who would go to the ends of the earth for each other. When Arwen toured the United Kingdom, one of my online friends made a special trip to London to bring Arwen an enormous bouquet of fresh flowers for her 21st brithday. (Arwen hauled those flowers back to the USA, even through customs, all the way back home. they meant that much to her.)
I don’t keep up with the lists every day. One of them can be very very busy. But the people I have met through those lists have become incredibly dear friends. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of them in real life (some more than once).
The Internet has even brought to life my pen pals. in a cyber world, that is probably a surprising revelation. But I have two friends with whom I have corresponded for 40+ years (give or take a few months). I met them through some pen pal page in Western Horseman magazine and somehow we have managed to continue to correspond through the years. I’ve met one of them and spoken to the other on the telephone. But through Facebook, I have been able to get to know them on a day-to-day basis, not just whenever a letter comes. it is amazing.
I just needed to get that off my chest, especially since 2009 was the Year of Internet Reunions for me. I made some special friends through blogs, too (mine or theirs). Heck – I have a couple real life friends with whom I keep in touch through blogs or social networking on the Internet. The telephone is so passé.
Last (and totally unrelated) is my photo of the day which I simply incorporate into my blog):
The accidental pairing of a favorite pair of titanium earrings and my glasses, which happen to be the same colors).
Jaci Dawn 