Facelessbook

I was remembering the other day that Myspace didn't have status updates (until it was already a sinking ship) and that Facebook used to not have status updates either. That was just a Twitter thing, once upon a time. And then I was like, "well wait, what did we even do on Facebook and Myspace then?"

And that's when it hit me. We talked to each other. It really was social networking. If I wanted to see how a friend was doing, I'd write on her wall and say, "hey, how are you doing?" And then she'd write back and tell me what was going on in her life. It still wasn't face-to-face but it was personal.

But now if I want to see how a friend is doing, I already know. Because I've seen her status updates. Take my friend Jackie from Elmbrook. Haven't talked to her in months, but I know she went backpack shopping with her little girl a couple weeks ago, and that she started preschool at Elmbrook this week. And if I look at her profile I can probably find out what TV shows she's into nowadays, and what music she's listening to. All without ever having any personal contact with her.

Instead of talking to people on a personal level, we broadcast our life happenings and our random thoughts to the world. We've become more open than ever before, but more isolated than ever before. Those two wouldn't have seemed to go hand in hand before the days of Facebook and Twitter. But there's less risk in post something to the ambiguous "they" than talking to someone who might just hurt you at some point.

I wonder what the generation we're raising up will be like. The generation who has had Facebook as a part of their formational preteen and teen years. Relationships are becoming more about knowing about people and less about interacting with people. I know I sound like an old codger at the young age of 26, but I really do fear for what this open-isolation will do for the generation just after mine. And to be quite honest, what it will do to my generation.