A week or two ago the old man received a rare email from our son, Dave. Its only message invited me to see his photos on Facebook. In an earlier call when we had complained about the rarity of his emails he told us that after his long work hours he had little energy, patience or desire for computer related activity. We were shocked at this sudden willingness to post his pictures!
So I couldn’t resist. Following the prescribed protocol, I found it required me to join the network by providing my own profile outline and also another of the many passwords one is supposed to memorize. That is expecting a lot from the old man. Still, I persisted and found that almost all the next or later generation members of my family could be “friends” of mine on Facebook.
Current mobile communication technology seems to be second nature to the younger ones and I am guessing that is what prompts them to post their latest gripes, achievements, complaints, and thoughts so readily to their “friends” on this and perhaps other social networks. Many of the brief posts seem to have been by way of text messages from mobiles, if the abbreviated language is any criterion, and one can detect evidence of the youngsters’ tendency to multi-task, perhaps indulging in such no-no’s as thumbing text messages while they should be focusing on something else.
Still, I have already had responses from grandsons who very seldom arrive at my Inbox, downloaded some photos from them, and even watched our great-grandson, Alex, starring in a “Happy Birthday, Daddy” video. Son, Dave, whose invitation to see his photos originally enticed me into this new world, has not been so forthcoming. I saw only a recent profile picture of him and a snap of his runabout business pickup truck. His original post was a short complaint that his boys had talked him into joining, and one later one talked about bad weather for driving late in November. Hey, Dave, add at least a picture with a caption once a week or so!
When I first scurried through various “friends’” pages on Facebook I must admit that I felt almost as though I was travelling on a foreign planet inhabited by aliens speaking in strange tongues. The old man has to plead his age, his tendency to be a loner, and the traditions he has dragged with him through the years that will undoubtedly designate him as a stranger to many of the inhabitants of the social network. A few searches of public figures found there proved to me that it takes all kinds to make not only a world, but even a village, as they say. I was somewhat dismayed to learn, for example, that Sarah Palin (Is she one of those aliens I mentioned?) and I actually have something in common, which I would have considered impossible. According to her Facebook profile she was born on my birthday. I wonder what the astrologers would tell me about that!
The network has many possibilities, and a few surprises, some of which I have enjoyed already. But I sense it also has unknown risks. The Internet seems to be so full of predators, one has to believe that almost everything posted to these networks, and possibly everything stored in one’s personal computer makes one subject to identity theft. Furthermore, no matter how careful one may be about posting libellous content in journals such as this there is always a possibility of offending someone somewhere, isn’t there?
Notwithstanding the strangeness, the old man will risk making the attempt to share this and maybe later issues of The Old Man’s Post with “friends” and perhaps others on the Internet, through my tentative Facebook profile page (see my Facebook profile photo above) just to see if a few more readers may be curious enough about this old man’s passing thoughts to take a look now and then and thus justify continuing the effort.
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