46 years… really? That’s right. These two women and I went to high school together. We rarely have seen each other in all of that time. We are friends on Facebook, and keep in touch that way.
It is easy to go on about how awful Facebook and social media in general are. In many ways that is true. However, there are some good things about it. The likelihood of me staying in touch with anyone from my high school days would have been slim without social media. I moved out of that small town in 1975, and never intended to move back. Over time, I have kept up with a few of my classmates through Facebook. Typically, the only time I have seen any of them in person was at a class reunion. Jana and Debi were going to each be in the area with their spouses. We decided to get together for a brunch here in Traverse City. It was a wonderful time catching up.
Without social media, would we have done this? I don’t know. Maybe. People obviously got together from long distances way before social media. What social media has done for me, is help me keep in touch with people from all over the world, whom I most likely would not have stayed in contact with. Thanks to my old podcast, Variant Frequencies, I even got to meet new people from many different places, and get to know them. Social media even made it possible for my wife, Cindee, and me to get together again after more than thirty years. I don’t know that it would have happened otherwise.
My point is, yes, there are many things to hate about social media. There are also some wonderful things about it to love.