Years ago, when two high school friends met on the street after 40 years, they would just chat about jobs, marriages, kids etc. If they noticed each was wearing the political button of the other party, they probably wouldn’t say anything until they walked away and they would mutter under their breath, “what an idiot”.
Today, with the Internet, online social networking and other online systems, we are able to find people that we were friends with many years ago. I graduated from High School in 1971, which doesn’t seem that long ago to me, but I know it is almost 40 years. I also grew up in a small town in Northeast Missouri, but had a unique group of people since there was a university, an Osteopathic medical college as well as from farms and smaller towns. I had a wide range of friends and liked them all. But we all grow up from high school days and get different viewpoints based on jobs, marriages, kids, where we end up, who we make as friends as adults, military service or not, interact with foreign cultures, loose jobs, get new careers and the list goes on and on. Essentially, we grew up.
Now enter social media and the internet. I’ve been bombarded for years to go to a classmates site. I was curious about the people I knew and what happened to them. It was nice to find out who is doing what. Who was married, still married, remarried or widowed. Who has grandkids and who can post the most pictures of them. The internet and social media sites like Facebook have allowed us to reconnect with friends from 40 years ago as well as our current circle of acquaintances and friends. Since I don’t have to worry what an employer thinks anymore, I can say what is on my mind. My current friends know me and know where I stand. When a conservative minded friend would come to my house during the last election, they saw my Obama sign and bumper stickers on the refrigerator. On the other hand, my friends and I have more to talk about than just politics. I respect my friends and their opinions. We don’t discuss it, but will hint at it. I have one friend that is very conservative, we disagree about politics, but he can have my right kidney if he needs it. Frankly, all my friends can have my right kidney if they need it. But what about those friends whose views of me are frozen in 40 years of time? What do they think of this online me?
Recently, I have become more politically aware and active with the Coffee Party. This is a moderate group interested in rational discussions on politics and reestablishing civility in discussions. Because of Facebook is the primary discussion tool, many topics come forward that may be center to left in leanings and because of this stand, I will offer my opinion as a status or as a comment on another topic. My current friends seem to ignore these. I have one very Tea Party/Libertarian who I know reads what I post because we agreed on a topic. But in most cases, everyone ignores those topics. I don’t care who has found Jesus and I don’t need to argue with them about conservative values etc.
But I have one ‘friend’ who doesn’t quite get it. Perhaps he thinks he has to balance his conservative viewpoint against my more liberal view. Maybe he is argumentative. Maybe he has a chip on his shoulder about me and my life. Maybe he has a need to debate his viewpoints. Maybe he wants to talk to people and doesn’t have a lot of friends. But we are not the people we were in high school and we wouldn’t have that much in common anymore. The problem is that I hate to say, ‘see ya’ to him. On the other hand, I don’t need his comments on some topics.
So I wonder, do social media sites really help bring us closer or just show us the gaps that we all have between each other. There is a part of me that likes knowing about grandkids and vacations. I’ve been able to sort of reconnect with old friends. This reconnection is not the same as a real connection, but given that I probably wouldn’t have heard from these people, this lets me have some imaginary re-acquaintance. So maybe social media systems offer us this chance, but we all need to be aware that the person on the other end or the people reading the comment are probably not who you think they are and so we have to question the relevance of the comment before any of us hit send.
No comments:
Post a Comment