First I should tell you that I joined Facebook and discovered that I couldn’t handle it. The number of posts and invitations flattened me like a school board meeting. I even made the mistake of putting Facebook on my smart phone thinking this was a means of keeping up, but the poor phone began coughing and wheezing, so great were the number of announcements–the phone sounded like it was getting “the croup” or more precisely, what they used to call “the vapors” and I had to uninstall the Facebook “app” from my BlackBerry. Then, without announcing the matter, I ran away from Facebook. I haven’t been “on” the thing for months. Occasionally I get messages from FB asking me if I’m still among the living. I delete these. I just can’t stay in the game.
A well meaning reader of this blog has suggested that I should “tweet” but I can’t. I try every day to push the words around, make sense, have some poetry, sing some songs, help those whose ambitions and ideas are worthy of what little help I can offer–and I walk my dog, swim, read books. If I can’t handle Facebook how can I handle the tweeting?
I love technology. But it’s got this three headed Cerberus thing. It has more appetites than a man has soul. My guitar is calling me. Its time to strum “The Worried Man Blues” for a while. Time to turn off the machines.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
I felt pretty much dragged into Facebook because it’s the one way I can keep tabs on two of my children, sort of. I haven’t yet tweeted, and probably won’t today. Or next week. Or next month.
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I tried Facebook but shut down my account after we let others know I desperately needed company (completely homebound for many months) but only one person–a family member–dropped by. My husband truly needed/needs help too–he can’t do it all. I support other people and we have definitely done our share of donations and meal making as we can but there’s no recipricocity when you’re disabled.
Plus people seemed to be annoyed by us telling the truth about our lives and how things are rather than optimistic platitudes.
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I’m with you. But thank God you blog because you’ve got that down.
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I resent FB and Twitter because they have pulled a lot of great bloggers/writers I used to read everyday into their evil vortex. They just don’t spend the time writing like they used to. I’m glad you are not among them, Prof Kuusisto!
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SK, I am totally with you on the Facebook/Twitter thing. I finally joined Facebook and Twitter when administrative staff at the agency where I work encouraged employees to join. My impressions were thus:
What’s this Twitter thing? Does it serve any usefuly purpose or is it just a reason in and of itself to text? No, I would rather not be a twit if I can help it.
I no longer visit my Facebook site. When I visited, I would think, “What the hell is all of this?” I’ve got other things to do. No way do I have the time or inclination to deal with Facebook. I did make connections with a woman with whom I used to work who now lives in Reno. That was nifty. It’s nice to acknowledge friends’ and colleagues birthdays. Otherwise, uh-uh, no way.
Cyberspace is like any social milieu. We need to make choices about engagement. If we try to do everything that comes along, eventually we’ll end up in a crack house shooting the breeze and other substances with Gosh knows whom.
There is puh-lenty of stuff that is meaningful and helpful in cyberspace without gimmicky, strange poop like Facebook and Twitter. If my friends want to communicate with me, they’ll find me, one way or another, without these two sites.
Maybe it’s an age thing, SK. Perhaps we sound like crotchety old hippies to the twenty-somethings. But my feeling is that they’ll all have cerebral hemorrhages by the time they’re 30 chasing after all this lunacy, and ultimately, they’ll realize that much of it is quite devoid of meaning or purpose. Thus spake I.
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