I love social networking, blogs, Twitter. All of it. And yes, I confess to playing 25 Questions About You, Five Places You’d Like to Live, and Which Movie Villain Are You quizzes. Sue me.
I’ve never understood this looking down their nose attitude that some display towards social networking sites. I’ve tried a couple and have settled upon Facebook and an occasional Tweet. I am a Baby Boomer who embraces technology with a vengeance.
More than that, I am very grateful to the enterprising souls who invented them. It’s kept me in touch, reconnected me with long-lost friends, and found me new friends from the far corners of the earth. Social networking has engaged me in a way I never thought possible back in the “dark ages” of the 60′s and 70′s. Though she doesn’t know it, Myrna expresses my sentiments in her latest:
I’ve yet to find anyone who advocates dropping out of real life and living online and am weary of seeing that straw man set up again and again by writers doing their best to make it seem noble that they don’t do it. And it wouldn’t be a proper straw man argument unless you deliberately emphasize the obnoxious side of social networking and leave out the amazing things people are accomplishing using social networking.
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Let’s just say that some generations have a hard time letting go of the fact that their way of doing things is not the only way anymore. The idea that community and meaningful relationships can be developed online threatens traditional ideas about how relationships are developed.
The premise that because something happens online it’s less valid than something that happens in the “real world” brings us back to the idea “slacktivism.” As I’ve discussed previously, people use the label to bemoan what they see as lazy activism that takes place primarily online. It’s automatically assumed by those invested in traditional tactics that online activism is not as authentic, meaningful, or successful as boots on the ground tactics. What’s missing from this conversation is a recognition of reality. We now live in a culture in which social networking is a reality–it’s not going away.
I’ve used online technology to raise money for breast cancer, promote my political causes, arrange house parties, yada yada yada.
And I love it. Love it, love it, love it!
Okay, but you have to admit that when people send you a facebook cappacino, that is just not the same as a real deal and hardly makes one feel warm and fuzzy and definitely not caffeinated…
And what’s up with all this pillow fighting?
Which is probably why I’m a Scrooge and never accept the lattes and beers and hugs and smiles and balloons and, and, and…
For those things, I want the real deal.
You know I don’t really believe all Boomers hate social networking, dont you? I was just trying to have a little fun with the Boomers. As a Gen Xer, its my god given right
Oh yes, I know. Like you, I don’t get the holier-than-thou attitude. And it’s not just limited to boomers, as I’m sure you’re aware.
I don’t understand those people (boomers or otherwise) who don’t use social networking and who can’t just leave those of us who do alone. Nope, they have to justify their choice to opt out by putting by putting down those of us who opt in by trying to make us wrong. Methinks there is some deep-seeded insecurity at play. But maybe not, maybe they’re just cantankerous.
Well, I don’t use social networking, but I haven’t wasted my breath criticizing others who do, expect perhaps to express my bafflement at the attraction of it. But there are a lot of things I don’t understand the attraction of. So I don’t do them, people who like them do, and the world goes on just fine.
Of course, I can’t understand why someone would care whether or not I approve. If someone wants to set me up as an icon of social approval, I’d rather they did it on the subject of starting unprovoked wars or other policies that kill people before they need to die.
Posting blog comments is about as sociable as I get. I readily admit to being cantankerous.
And you’ve got a cane to wave too, eh?
Actually, I do. Made it myself, down to trimming a branch for the wood. I used electrical tape to stripe it, a candy cane pattern (currently black & white).
It garners a lot of comments from people. I may not have an important purpose in life, but I do provide occasional comic relief.