2008 – The year I learned to love facebook
2008 was many things, but I can say with a straight face that getting into facebook was one of the better things that happened for me.
In early 2008 I was struggling with the death of a close friend and reconnecting with people who have played a role in my life at one time or another just to check in and say hi and I’m thinking about you was healing in a way I needed but would never have predicted. I don’t think the creators of facebook thought that their tool could help users through profound grief but it sure has for me.
In the second half of 2008, facebook has sustained my need to be connected to adults with whom I have professional and personal connections. With our move and my transition to a mostly stay-at-home role, the amount of adult interaction I’ve had has significantly decreased. The frequent though short bursts of activity on facebook give me an outlet that comes close to my workdays at my most recent job at Stanford. I had brief interactions everyday with a wide variety of people, most of whom I was interested in the one or two sentence updates and a few I was interested in pursuing more in-depth conversations.
A few other directions that I’ve been thinking about:
* Is there such a thing as collective curiosity? All of this curious energy being explored in facebook by not only me and my network but by every user and their network. Everyone wondering what people from different parts of their lives are up to, reopening conversations and memories that had been closed.
* I love the amount of collaborative writing taking place on facebook on people’s walls and on groups. Sarah had some nice thoughts about this the other night, thinking about how much energy people put into writing here.
* I am challenged by the diversity of the audience that we can create for what we do here. Being friends on facebook with my parents and my in-laws as well as some long time family friends makes me think carefully about what I might write. One way to get over the fear of what future employers might see is to start out by friending your parents and in-laws.
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year
