Joining the Crowd

A few weeks back I was in conversation with the programmers at work, who are considerably younger than this old programmer. (They are generally patient with my archaic knowledge of such things as COBOL, but sometimes you can see in their eyes that they are wondering if I was on speaking terms with any of the dinosaurs.) The conversation turned to Facebook and Twitter. Did I use them?

Well, I said, I had set up a Facebook account but I just couldn't yet see where it might fit into my world. I primarily wanted a presence there so that old high school and college friends might be able to connect, keeping in mind that my old high school and college friends are doddering and elderly themselves. I really didn't expect to spend much time there.

Then a couple of my genealogy contacts started posting messages and picking back and forth with each other. I couldn't keep out of that. Then a former co-worker who moved to New York City made contact and it was fun to have a way to fire off a brief "hey, how are you" and find out she was doing ok when there is no longer much we have in common to chat about. She travels a lot and takes great pictures, so I am also able to enjoy her adventures in a vicarious way, one brief moment captured at a time.

Then some current co-workers came on board. We don't always have time to chat at the office and it has provided little glimpses into what we do when we don't have our noses to the grindstone.

And now we have a small community of first cousins who are tweaking each other's noses. I have often wished we first cousins were in better contact and I am sensing this might be a way for us to keep in touch and get to know each other as adults, one zinger at a time. So far there are six of us active and I hope our number grows. I've often envied the sibling relationships that exist in the group of first cousins of which my father was a member. While I don't expect Facebook to create that kind of environment for us, at least it gives us a venue to communicate in brief conversational bursts and learn something about each other.

In a few weeks I've gone from seeing little use for the application to looking forward to checking in a half dozen times a day to see what's going on. If nobody is active, there is always an interesting quiz to take. That in itself can get addictive.

And we won't even discuss the Farm Town game. It's not an addiction, it's an obsession. My fondness for games, and especially sim-type games, has cause me to adopt Farm Town with a vengeance. I continue to have a great time building my little farm, planting my watermelons, peas, cotton and such and then going into the Farm Town community to hire folks to come harvest when the crops come in. Yes, it is a complete waste of time. I am enjoying it immensely.

So, I give. I'm an active participant in Facebook.

Now Twitter on the other hand? I don't think so. I just don't see the point of logging my entire day, line by line. Who cares that I'm standing in line at Starbucks? I'm afraid Twitter will have to do without me.

After all, there's no Farm Town there.

LSW