Staying in Touch

People used to stay in touch with letters, regular telephone calls, meetings, etc. People used to have face to face conversations. Now it's different. Now people converse by texting or tweeting and in doing so miss out on the nuance that actual voices and faces project. Communication is more personal and less personal at the same time. People connect to hundreds or more Face Book friends but often feel less connected. I can understand why people might alter photos of themselves and give misleading, ego boosting information for on line dating sites but people lie on Face Book and other social media sites too, and it’s easy to do so. Maybe we are just trying to put up a facade of the lives we wish for or can at least partially substantiate. We can find images with all kinds of sayings to share at all kinds of places, like pinterest, and then progress to like, comment, or share. We can like, comment, and share with celebrities or about causes whether we have a personal connection or not. Maybe we are all just seeking to connect, after all we are social animals and the stuff I am blogging about is social media.

On the positive side, social media is useful for keeping family members and friends that are far away in time and distance in touch with the daily goings on in our lives. Event invitations and thank yous and fundraisers happen there all the time too. I have only just recently moved from spying on FB to actually liking, commenting, and sharing and that in itself has been an interesting transition. I guess I’m just glad that I have face to face friends that help keep me sane and connected to real life. I just hope they can understand why I am changing my profile picture again because this is the real me!