Facebook, Twitter (et al.): Social Catalysts or Social Hindrances?

These days there are many people flocking to Facebook, Twitter and all the other online social networking sites to (re)connect with others. Personally, I really enjoy these sites (specifically FB). I enjoy catching up with (and finding) long lost friends and making new friends. I like that it facilitates get-togethers, new friendship connections and makes us more social. Some people though, do not share my opinion, they feel that FB (et al.) does not, in fact make us more social, but actually, impedes us from becoming so by keeping us trapped behind a computer, thus lowering our human interaction to strictly electronic means.

Here is one argument (names/details have been edited to protect the innocent/guilty):

Social: adjective
1) Pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations
2) Living or disposed to live in companionship with others in community, rather than isolation
3) Of or pertaining to human society
4) Of or pertaining to the life, welfare, and relations of human beings in community.

Now...with that being known...when you put this definition together with a computer, email, tweets, images, posts...how in the hell is that social? You are taking the very essence of being social and you are throwing it away. It’s nearly an oxymoron.

Most (not all) foolios and idiots who have MySpace and Facebook and Twitter...are folks who completely hide behind a computer. They spend their lives on a website. They are the very antithesis of the word social. There is no human contact. No shaking of the hands, no face to face.

Its funny...I nearly crack myself up every night when I see people with 300 or 500 or 1000 friends...its so hilarious as most people won't even go through life speaking to 100 people...let alone 500. You know what is also funny...all those people who are social networking addicts...usually socialize with the same people that they actually interact with. Is the crazy or what?

The same 10 friends that you see at work, school, neighborhood...are the same 10 people you network with on Facebook. What a waste. Maybe once in a blue moon your reconnect with someone you haven't seen in a long time.

But most of the time it’s just the same folks over and over again. It’s laughable and totally against what being social is.

So...of course I'm not anti-social. I interact with hundreds of folks everyday. Actually seeing them and meeting with them and human physical contact with them. Much more satisfying than wanting to know what some person you've never met...a million miles away...is doing.

Having a few people to keep in touch with, family members, people to help you out in events…that what? Maybe totals about 50 people? Maybe less, maybe more? What about the other hundreds of people that you never keep in touch with?

And, I’m not above anyone. I’m just not a tool that follows trends. Oh…everyone is FBooking…let me do it too. Hey, everyone owns an iphone, let me own it too. Hey, everyone this, let me do it too. I like to go against the grain. And hey, I’m not one to
totally rule out networking on the computer. I’ve shared my blogs with people; I’m in multiple fantasy football leagues with people I don’t know. The part I don’t like is just that FB has become this monster of a thing that is out of control. Of course, you can do what you want…but when you start hearing stories about busting your wife cheating on you in FB, stalking and killing people through FB, posting false information about people on FB, having someone hack your FB account. I mean…yeah sure, only a small percentage in the grand scheme of things…but still possible.

FB is such a waste of time and productivity also. Just surfing, seeing what their ex is doing, seeing how bad or good someone looks…blah, blah. All doing this during work hours. The fact that you spend more time on your job, than in your home…and you spend those hours looking at FB…it’s a waste. Of course, on your own time…no problem.

Facebook creates a false impression of an active social life. But of course, it’s an illusion. It’s smoke and mirrors. When you see hundreds of photos and comments of “friends” tends to make people believe that these people actually care for you…but then can you even count on your fingers how many times you actually meet up with people for a pizza or a movie? Facebook sucks ass for single people…old flames may still haunt you. You can say that Facebook is a nice way of stalking. People can get jealous and envious of others. Kids lose focus and just spend hours upon hours with FB either on their computers or their phones. Grades start to dwindle. To me, Facebook should be more like a nice blog that you occasionally visit to read the latest information on something. But, most everyone is so engulfed by Facebook…that it takes over any moment of free time they may have. I mean, when you start to think that if you work 9 hours a day, and spend 4 hours on Facebook, then you go home, and are on Facebook, and then before you go to sleep, you are Facebooking and then you sleep and wake up again to do everything over…come on dude. Facebook is the devil.

My reply to this argument:

Thanks to Facebook I’ve found lots of people that I had lost touch with. Perhaps the friendship fizzled and it was time to move on, but perhaps not. Perhaps I just like knowing where they are and having them there where I can talk to them at a moments notice. Perhaps it’s great to have a little/big network of friends that I can count on to help me with all my silly voting contests. Perhaps it’s easier for me to keep in touch with my family from El Salvador this way. Perhaps I like to know, hey, whatever happened to so and so. I don’t like to burn bridges, just because someone is now my acquaintance and not my best friend anymore, that doesn’t mean that a networking opportunity might not come up where we would require each other’s help/input. Just cause someone is not that close of a friend anymore, doesn’t mean I don’t like to say hi once in a while or commiserate with them when their kid is acting up, or check out their cool vacation photos. And what's wrong with being/making friends with people half way across the globe?

I have planned, found out about, and attended activities, meetings, and get-togethers (OMG actual face to face human interaction so scary, cause God knows I don’t ever do any of that) through Facebook. These included both old friends that I hadn’t seen in years and new people that I met at these events. If someone wants to be a hermit and hide behind their computer, well, then they don’t need Facebook to do that. If someone wants to use Facebook to keep a rapport going with old friends and acquaintances, then that’s fabulous. If someone wants to use Facebook as a platform to help arrange events and meet other people, (thus making them more social in real life too…yes, it’s possible, believe it or not) then that’s great too. If someone wants to just use it to talk to the same 10 people that they talk to every day, then good for them, who am I to tell them not to? Facebook (et al.), like many other things in life, is what you make of it.

_____________________________________________

So tell me, readers, what say you? Do you use Facebook, Twitter, etc? Are those sites social enablers or do you believe that they are inherently evil, bad for us, and turn us into hermits?

Gym Fail

I returned to the gym today after a long period of laziness. I entered through the doors with a smile on my face, ever so proud of myself for finally coming back. Suddenly I was reminded of the fact that I had to have my ID to get in. Aw crap. OK, no problem I figured since they allow you one freebie per month. Unfortunately, in my long absence, their rules had changed and the person at the counter pointed to the lovely little sign and rubbed it in my face that I could not enter without a picture ID. I offered to recite my entire personal information file including but not limited to my social, address, pet name and underwear color if necessary, but alas, the (insert expletive of choice) would not budge. No picture I.D., no entrance. No tickey, no laundry. Yeah, I get it.

I left and ventured far and away to go get my ID and then came back (wasted 20 minutes of my precious work out time). As I strolled in, this time with a not so friendly look on my face, I walked past the counter and flashed her my I.D. (you need to show it to them and then swipe it at the turnstile) conveniently placing it behind my middle finger (yes, I'm a big baby, so what).

I was feeling like quite a bad ass for giving the bird when I suddenly came up on the turnstile and my I.D. wouldn't work. I swiped it. Swiped it again. and again. Losing more and more of my edge with every swipe. The person at the counter finally felt sorry for me and pressed the button to let me in, right at the same moment that I pushed on the bar and then pulled back, which caused the bar to become stuck half way. Which I then had to squeeze through (instantly reminding me of why I was there in the first place) while looking like a total dork. Yeah.

Whatever snarkiness was achieved with the flashing of the bird was suddenly lost by looking like a trapped bird on the turnstile.

Gym Bird = FAIL

Go ahead, you may point and laugh now.

Wannadon't City

Yesterday, instead of going to the movies, R and I took the boys to Wannado City (further known as Wannadon't City in my house). Once I got past the price of getting in there (and the ridiculous fact that Me, Ren and the BABY had to pay too just to go watch Chris) it was pretty overwhelming. If you've never been there before, there's a slight learning curve to figuring out how the whole place works. It doesn't help that the people at the registers don't really explain things to you. A simple "Welcome! Have you visited us before? Would you like me to explain how it works?" would have been nice. I guess I've been spoiled by Disney. No friendly mousketeers here, they just put an electronic prisoner tracking bracelet on all of us (I'm guessing so they don't steal your child or in case he gets lost), hand you a piece of paper (a check) and throw you to the lions. There are posters on the wall showing you the map of this place, but there are no maps that you can actually take with you as you go inside, which would be oh so helpful.

We walked inside, looked all around and didn't even know where to start. I crossed the miniature street without getting run over the miniature fire truck and noticed that there were little stations all over the place. Each station had a little (or not so little) line of children waiting to get inside. We walked around a bit and stopped someone to ask them what we were supposed to do with this little check. They told us to go to the bank and cash it or deposit it. Interesting. So we go to the bank and gave the lady the check and she gave us a wad of Wannado City money. Cute, OK, now what?

We went back into the city and looked around for a line to get into. We found a Willy Wonka factory line and were just about to get in line when I noticed that in all the activities, there were only kids in there. Not ONE parent. Parents weren't even allowed to wait in the line! Now if anyone knows my son, then they know that this trip just became a huge waste of time and money. He HATES being by himself and he is super slow to warm up to things, so there was no way he was going to wait in line, let alone go inside the mini little buildings to do things BY HIMSELF. HA! I quickly asked one of the workers there if all the activities were like that and if parents were allowed to go in with the kids. She said they could but that we had to have a special pass which we had to go pick up at guest services which was where exactly? Oh yes, my very own map would have been nice right around now.

After finding the cleverly hidden guest services, we get our pass and go back in the city. With pass in hand we head over to one of the little rides in the Wannado Fair. Surprise surprise, Chris doesn't want to ride by himself, so we went on the merry-go-round instead, where I AM allowed to go with him. We then head over to the Willy Wonka Factory. I get in line with Chris and we wait...and wait...and finally they let in 12 children. Wouldn't you know it, we're #13. The lady tells us that the next batch of children will be let in in half an hour. Nice. In the meantime I start chatting it up with one of the kids in line to get the scoop on how this place works. She tells me that you have to pay some of your Wonga bucks to get inside the fun stuff, but then you can go do a "job" (Fireman, Doctor, Dentist...etc) and you get paid. Wow, we get to do this in real life, why come and pay to do that here!?

We wait and wait and wait, and my child is getting bored and restless:

Chris: Can we go to the Haunted Mansion?
Me: There is no Haunted Mansion here.
Chris: How about the YO-HO's?
Me: There are no YO-HO's here either babe.
Chris: Awww.

Perhaps it was all the time spent in line that made him think that we were in Disney. I felt the same way too (minus the nice employees, more on that later). More than half an hour later, we finally get called in and we have to pay 60 of our Wannado bucks to get in. The actual experience is pretty cute because they had the kids make a little candy ice cream cone. Fortunately for me, Chris took one bite and didn't like it. It was delicious.

Now it was time to go work and make some money. Chris had seen the little ambulance and firetruck driving around, so he wanted to do that. The firetruck line was super long, so we went to the hospital instead. We got in line. They let 8 children in. Surprise surprise, we were #9 (I'm sensing a trend here). The lady said the next fire truck would be here in 45 minutes. Seeing as how we had time to kill, R waited in line with Jordan (wearing the special pass or else he can't even stand in line) and I took CMan across the "street" to the cafe to get something to eat. We ordered our pizzas and just as we were about to sit down to eat, R called me to tell me that one of the kids didn't want to ride the ambulance so I had to bring Chris back now because they weren't going to wait for him and adults weren't allowed to hold a spot in line anyway. So I piled my pizza plates one on top of the other and grabbed the sodas and ran over there, only to discover that the kid that chickened out, decided to ride after all. So here we were standing with all this food and the cheese of the bottom pizza got stuck to the bottom of the plate of the top pizza and the top pizza was too hot to eat and we had to all wait in line RIGHT THERE for 45 minutes because no one could save a spot for anyone.

We're all standing there eating our food when it suddenly occurs to me to ask if parents (with the guest pass) are allowed to ride the ambulance with the children. Surprise surprise. NO. Um OK. So we ask what time the next job starts and the super friendly lady dressed as a nurse points to the wall and says "the times are right there". On the wall are a bunch of little clocks with the name of each job posted on it and the hands of the clock pointing to when the next one will start. It looks like Surgery is starting in the next 5 minutes so I tell the lady that Chris will not be riding the ambulance and that he'll do whatever job is next. She says fine. So we wait...and wait. When all of a sudden I hear someone say that the line for the other jobs is inside. We go inside and the lady tells us to just have a seat inside at which point I not so kindly ask her why she didn't tell us this 10 minutes earlier when I told her that he was going to do another job. She says she did. Rrrright. You know this Wannadon't City really does mimic the real world. I feel like I'm in one of those hospitals with the jaded work staff that is tired of talking to sick people all day and just doesn't give a damn. Amazing.

I leave R and Chris waiting in the waiting room for the next job to start (which is now like in 20 minutes because Surgery is now full) while I go change Jordan. When I get back we switch and R takes Chris to the bathroom. While I'm sitting there, the same lovely nurse tells me that parents are not allowed in there because that is the waiting area just for children to which I reply "he went to the bathroom and I'm holding his spot. Seeing as how we already wasted a lot of time waiting outside since nobody told us that the line was in here, I have no intention of losing his spot again". So There! She didn't say anything.

I continue waiting in my little waiting bench when a group of girls walks in and asks what the next available job is. The nurse at the desk tells them it's Pathology and the waiting area is over there (pointing to an area that I am NOT in) but there is only one spot left. No sooner has she finished saying that when one of the girls sits in that spot. I am just about to have a major freak out when R walks back in and the following exchange ensues:

Me: "What specific job are we waiting here for?"
Ren: "Pathology"
Me: "Oh really? because the lady just said that Pathology is over THERE and there is one spot left, and someone just took it"

At this point Nurse Ratched notices that I am about to stuff my pizza up her ass and she quickly states that it doesn't matter where the waiting area is, we are in the next group.

You know what, this is way too much stress. I leave and sit on a bench with Jordan while R and Chris put their gloves on to do their Pathology work. Is there a miniature insane asylum in this little city because I want to go there.

After the hospital fiasco we head over to the Archaeology area. Chris goes inside with Ren and fortunately this time we checked the sign first to see how many kids go in at once to make sure that we are not that number+1. Their adventure is uneventful and he and I switch off so that Chris and I can do the next job of digging for dinosaur bones. We are happily sitting down waiting for our turn when the lady in the line behind me starts whacking her kid because he did something for the third time already and she is just fed up (she must have just come from the Wannado hospital too, they have that effect on people). Another lady starts reprimanding her, calling her an animal, and telling her to stop hitting her kid or else she is going to call the cops on her. What do you know Wannado City has a Jerry Springer job too!

The rest of the day was spent going on the merry-go-round one more time (don't sit on the horses ma'am....damn, I'm not that heavy) and then we decided to call it a day. We went to guest services to return the guest pass and ask them where we can go to have our prisoner bracelets removed and they direct us to stall number 9 or 10, the sign of which was super tiny, so if we hadn't asked, we'd be wandering around trying to figure out how to leave.

Review and Recommendations: It's a cute concept, but some activities need to be a little more organized (cough cough, hospital, cough cough) and the staff needs to be friendlier. When you walk in they should give you a map and brochure detailing how it works . I also think the age range should be higher maybe ages 4 and up because some 3 year olds just aren't ready to do all these things by themselves. Babies shouldn't have to pay to get in.

Don't expect me to set foot in there for at least another 3 years (until JJ is 4).

McPregnancy Hormone Rant

Yesterday while I was driving home from work, I had a fleeting thought that perhaps R and I could go to the movies that evening (since our movie-going ability is going to be severely limited in 6 days), but then I remembered the response I usually get from him about going to the movies on a weeknight (or any night for that matter)....Drive all the way over there? (the movie theater is 5.27 miles away from our house) ....Let's watch a movie at home instead...I'm tired...I'm sleepy...I have a headache...I have homework.

I decided not to even bother bringing it up.

I get home and Mr. I'm tired is looking and feeling super chipper. Wow, where'd all that energy come from? Apparently, he was on his way out to Books and Books in Coral Gables (16.24 miles from our house....see, now THAT really IS far from our house...unlike the movie theater) because Danica Mcwhatshername from the Wonder Years is having a book signing for a pre-algebra math book she wrote for young girls.

Hmmm let's see:

Ren...not a girl
Claudia...not a young girl...doesn't need help with math
Christian...not a girl...too young for pre-algebra
Little Wiggly....not a girl...way too young for pre-algebra

How pathetic.

Not only does this irk me because she looks like an alien, but because he's willing to go the extra mile (11.17 of them to be exact) on a weeknight to go see some chick, but when I want to go to the movies it's a major mission. I guess there's no homework on Winnie Cooper nights. And God knows how much he paid for that book that neither of us can use (edited: $24.95 hardcover). He might as well have purchased a book on underwater basket weaving for 80 year old Canadian women...or better yet, Dancing with Cats...since you know, we have none.

I'd post the picture he took with her, but just looking at it pisses me off, so I'll link to it instead. He's got a smile the size of a house on it...where's that smile when he's taking family pictures? Yeah, I guess taking pictures with your wife, son and future baby is kind of a downer...compared to Danica McKellar.

Unfortunately, it appears that CMan is following in his dad's footsteps. At daycare he likes to snuggle with the pretty girl that watches him. He doesn't do that with me (or my mom, or Ren), if any of us even gets close to him he says "stop blowing me" which means, stop breathing on me. This past Sunday Chris wouldn't let me put away the Parade magazine because there was a lovely picture of three ladies on the cover. My son was mesmerized looking at the girls ("guh-wols")..."look at the guhwols mommy!". Last night I was looking at a parenting magazine. It had a milk mustache ad with another attractive "guhwol" (I don't know who it was) and he wouldn't let me turn the page. He just kept staring at it and saying "look at the guhwol mommy". I just hope he doesn't ask me to pin the picture up to his wall...he's a bit young for that. Besides, pin-up ladies and twinkle twinkle little star don't really go together.

Like father, like son, Sigh. Oh well, at least CMan has better taste.