“I don’t want you as a ‘friend’” my teenager
said last week. The issue is a constant bugbear of mine because she is a friend
to some two hundred people I have never met. “You are too nosey AND you are my
MOTHER”. I can’t even ‘Like’ my own daughter because of her decision to block
me. I went back to my computer and ‘Liked’
Jedward instead. So what if my own daughter won’t let me be her friend, none of
this is real life, it’s Facebook.
Ten years ago this month a clever young man
named Mark Zuckerberg created the groundbreaking social networking site that has gripped the world ever since. It is hard to believe but one in every thirteen
people on planet earth is on Facebook. Watch out for anyone who is not on it,
they may be a psychopath.
Psychologists who studied Facebook
concluded that in today’s world, it is such a huge a part of everyday life that
an absence from it may be an indication that you are mentally unstable. My
sister is not on it. “Why would I want to share my life with the world?” she
told me, “I am not remotely interested. Besides, I haven’t got the time.”
In many ways you have to envy her. Facebook
won’t kill you like smoking, but it does have the same addictive qualities.
Once you sign up, it is likely that along with seven hundred million users you
will check in every day (for an average of twenty minutes). “I’d rather be
pruning my roses” was my sibling’s response to that fact.
Seriously, I don’t think my sister is a
psychopath. There is still time for me to be proved wrong mind you and I will
keep you informed of any developments. She
is however, intensely private, has no interest in computers and isn’t the
slightest bit nosey, unlike me. Facebook
is virtual people watching and I as I am a very inquisitive person, we are a
match made in heaven.
The statistics are simply incredible. Over
one billion people are registered on Facebook. Seven hundred billion minutes
are spent each month on the site.
Rhianna has 80 million ‘Likes’, Lady Ga Ga has 65 million, Justin Bieber
has 62 million and Jedward have a hundred thousand. The person most talked
about on the site in 2013 was Pope Francis.
As teenagers are becoming tired of it and
moving to groovier sites like SnapChat, middle-aged women are taking over.
That’s (almost) me. It’s thanks to Zuckerberg’s creation that this week I
discovered that a young lad that I have known since the day he was born scored
a goal in the FA Cup. I read up on how hypothyroidism affects the quality of
your life and how the latest research proves that we all need to eat more
bananas.
I also learnt that on the other side of the
world, an old school friend is having trouble with her false nails. They keep
falling off because she can’t find the right glue. I sent her a virtual roll of
Sellotape to cheer her up. It is all riveting stuff in my Facebook world and it
is hard to imagine what life would be like without my daily news fix.
My daughter may refuse my online friendship
on the grounds that I am too nosey (how VERY dare she) but I do have other ‘friends’. They include a few mums from school, a handful
of teachers, a load of old classmates and college pals, Newbridge (the whole
town has a page), this newspaper, a shoe shop, a woman I met in Greece, a
cleaning company and a teddy bear named Claude. That’s one weird party if they all same over
at once.
The truth is that half of my Facebook ‘friends’
I haven’t seen for twenty years, they are not real friends. I would have trouble recognizing most of them
in person. I certainly wouldn’t call the teddy bear Claude in an emergency and
if I asked the cleaning company round for dinner, they’d be confused but it’s
not really about close friendships. It’s about communication.
Facebook has helped us keep in touch. When
a dear friend moved to Oman last year, it was desperately sad for the whole
family. Our children have grown up together and Oman is too far away to visit.
But thanks to social media, our families communicate almost daily. The social
networking site’s greatest strength is that it connects people.
I am currently following a young friend working
in Thailand. Every day I can see that she is having fun and is safe. We send
messages regularly. With the sheer amount of people leaving their homelands for
work abroad, it is no surprise to learn that 57% of people talk more online
than they do in real life. What did we
do before Facebook?
Back in 2004, if I wanted to send a picture
of the children to the Grandparents, it was nothing but a struggle. I’d spend
hours taking the perfect photo; with four children it was mission impossible.
Then I’d go to the chemist and get the photo printed off - that would take a
day or two. Then I’d put the photo in a card and try to remember to post it. Facebook
has made sending pictures as easy as pressing a button.
As for Grandma, the internet has become a
social lifeline. Not only is she is in contact with my daughter, she has also struck
up fantastic on-line friendships with like-minded women in Kerry, Cork and
Dublin, all from her home in Oxford.
Maybe in another ten years my daughter will
accept my online ‘friend’ request. Until
then, we’ll just have to make do and keep talking face to face. On behalf of the bed bound, the house bound
and the homeward bound, I shall tuck into a slice of this cake and wish Facebook a Happy 10th Birthday.
No comments:
Post a Comment