Facebook and more

I've been on Facebook for about a year; I joined as part of a Web 2.0 course from the State Library, designed to teach lots of the new technologies out there. So it's been fun, mostly because many of my library friends are there. But sometimes long-lost people show up - that's what makes it interesting. An old high school friend found me, along with my brother, of all people! Not like we had to find each other, but we seldom visit. On Facebook we can keep in contact a lot more. His wife is also on, so I get to hear more about what she's doing than I would otherwise. We've even gotten Mom interested, although she's still trying to figure it all out. Now we need to get our other brother (the younger one - you'd think he'd be the one trying to get us on!). 

It's easy to get carried away, of course. I'm also on Twitter (what are you doing in 140 characters or less). A cousin is also on there, although most of his posts are work-related. You can  follow anyone, unlike Facebook where you need to "confirm" the friendship connection. In this way, Twitter has a higher creepiness factor - I'm following people I've never met but only know from their professional work. You can block people, though, so it's not quite the stalking network you might think. The professional folk usually want a high number of followers, and tend to invite everyone. I'm even following the Library of Congress! Pres. Obama used it very effectively during his campaign to keep people informed of events.

Not all the younger generation is as excited: Jon-Erik is mortified that I'm using some of these social networking sites (he only made a Facebook page to humor me) and James-Philip didn't know what Facebook was until Sunday. So I guess I still know a little more than my kids.