Facebook

Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, Skype, texting, iPad, iPhone, and Blackberry have certainly changed how we communicate with each other. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook when he was a student at Harvard. In his mid-20's his personal wealth is around $25 billion dollars. A half-billion people are on Facebook around the world. The changing of the guard in Egypt last month was from social media. It is wonderful that we can reconnect with that person that harassed you in in the fourth grade or that gym teacher who made an hour a day of your school day miserable. You can reconnect to that girl who broke your heart your freshman year in college or that guy who borrowed $25 dollars from you in 1971. Of course he had no recollection of the loan. Facebook has given us the ability to post our binge eating at Hardee's and our disgust with the cost of a gallon of regular unleaded. Twitter? Do you Twitter? I am sorry, I gave it up for Lent. I woke up to the trend in social media communication in 2008 when students in my communication courses made me aware of it. Facebook was a college student only thing with the start of it less than 10 years ago. Today it seems that we have Facebooked ourselves silly. I am wondering what has happened to the art of face to face communication. I know people who text their kids when it is time for supper. I have not seen my neighbors in Cobb County since the Reagan Administration but I get an e-mail from them from time to time. The innovations in our digital age are difficult for me to keep up with. I am as confused as Charlie Sheen in a pharmacy. Whatever happened to pay phones? I remember it cost a nickle to make a call at the phone booth in front of Bowman's store on Head Avenue. Can you recall the last time you saw a phone booth? When I was at West Georgia in the 1970's I remember Melissa Smith McCain worked in the computer lab. The computer in those days was the size of a Greyhound Bus. Melissa told me to take courses on computer science because someday computers would be a major part of the way we live. She told me computers would be in every home and business in America. Do you remember your first home computer? The innovative technology today makes the home computer you just bought obsolete by the time you get it out of the box. Apple came out with a new iPad that makes the one I got last September seem like a stone tablet like Charleton Heston had in the movie The Ten Commandments. Movies today can be streamed to your house by Netflix. You can watch any television program you wish to by going to the Internet. Have you noticed the shelf space for recorded music at a Wal Mart has shrunk dramatically? Today people go to iTunes and digitally download the latest album from Justin Beiber who just turned 17 on March 1st and is slowly making us dads and moms go broke buying his merchandise. This new digital age in my opinion has improved much of how we live, however it is ruining the art of conversation. When is the last time you had a visit on the front porch with a friend? When is the last time you wrote a relative or friend a hand written letter? When is the last time you got a hand written letter in the mail from anyone? My biggest problem is I tend to cling to what I grew up with. I am a relic of a day that is gone and won't return. Television entertainment for me is a preference for the Andy Griffith Show instead of Two and a Half Men. Many of us are convinced that Muammar Gaddafi isn't the most insane person on the planet. That honor belongs to megabrat Mr. Sheen. I am stuck in a time warp of when I listened to radio and there was a Joe Rumore on the air. Today millions of people pay money to hear Howard Stern's program that is one toilet joke after another on satellite radio. I am stuck in an age where celebrities cared about what they did and how they behaved. Morning television programs like Good Morning America, and The Today Show recently gave a forum to the drug fueled Charlie Sheen. He's like watching a train wreck. Mr. Sheen is estranged from his father and many people who truly love him. I hope he gets professional help. If he doesn't seek help, I don't see him returning to Two and a Half Men or from the grave. I hope you have a great week ahead. I have to go now and check Facebook.