Brick on Facebook

     According to the Facebook Timeline I joined on Nov. 11, 2008.  My first posts were in July of 2009.  Since that time I have become a daily poster to Facebook.  It is part of my normal routine.  If I don't have anything to say for myself then I usually find something to comment on from someone else.  I wish happy Birthday to whoever is having one, I like people's pictures and posts about their kids and their vacations and their new stuff, I try to find funny things to say when that is the direction of the post, and I usually follow the links to the Youtube videos that seem to be in the least bit interesting.  I used to review books that I read, I play Words with Friends (I never did Mafia or Farmville or any of the other popular games on Facebook, but I was never derisive of the people that did), and I've posted hundreds of pictures and videos in my "Albums".  I have a group I created called "Brick's Rules of F@cebook Etiquette" and another called "Howell's History Alumni".  I have run several 30 Day Challenges for people to post consecutively about a specific topic for 30 days in a row.  When I first started I even ran a "Can you guess this movie from the soundbite" game.  Occasionally I will just post three things (think Tribond) with some kind of connection and see which people prefer.  Facebook even helped me plan my vacation last summer when I attended the First Rockford Files Fest with some people from the show that I met online and now I post soundbites from that show so people can identify the episode.

      But before any of you start checking your calendars to plan my intervention I want you to know that I still bathe regularly, I hold down a steady job, and my family does still remember my first name.  Facebook for me is what I do instead of vegging out in front of the television or at times what I do simultaneously while vegging out in front of the television.  With a smart phone I can walk and play Words at the same time.  I don't get convulsions if I have to be away from my computer for a couple of days but I do focus more on what I'm doing to consider if there is anything in it to post.  I take way more pictures of my life events than I ever did before and I have become more of an observer of things going on around me scanning for interesting tidbits that I might share like my "over heard in the halls" comments.  So many commentators decry social media as the downfall of western civilization that I feel like I need to come to its defense or at least try and justify my involvement with it.  I agree that there are some bad trends associated with putting your whole life into the public domain and who knows how it might be used in the future, but for the most part I don't think too many people care that I ate at the Slurping Turtle last month and I just don't see how that fact is going to bring me to ruin, at least not my review (which can be seen at Brick's Picks on this very blog).

     I benefit from the "social" part of this social media.  I really like interacting with people in a casual, friendly way and pretty much on my own terms.  I think it is very cool that when I checked a while back I had at least a couple of former students from each of the 27 years that I have taught on my Friends List, in most cases they sent the friend request to me rather than the other way round which I really appreciated.  Facebook was where we organized the 30th Reunion for the Muncie Southside Rebels.  I have colleagues and former students that share ideas and links with me for my teaching, I have former student teachers as Facebook friends, I have made deals and offered significant advice and opinions on it.  Many times I read about things on Facebook before I read about them on the news websites.  So I'm a fan.  I don't really get bent out of shape when they change formats or force a timeline on us, I just like that it's free.  It is opening up possibilities of interacting with people that frankly were out of my life and had Facebook, or something like it, not come along would have been out of my life forever.  The fact that so many are back in my life is nearly miraculous.  So I'm willing to take the good with the bad and risk someone tagging me in an unflattering picture (most of the ones I post of myself fit that description anyway) just as long as it gives me the chance to say "lol" to someone that chances are I wouldn't have the chance to interact with in any other way.