My name is Anne and I'm addicted to Facebook.
"Hi, Anne."
In the last month or so since I joined, I've found friends that have been lost for years. Friends I'd wondered about. A few, I'm ashamed to admit, I'd forgotten about. Not because they were bad friends, but because my brain just couldn't hold it all in.
It's not that I want to relive the past - I don't. It's that I want to bring those dear friends from the past into my present. Somehow. Though it's not physically possible, (in most cases, the exception being one of my best friends from high school that I found on Facebook and lives UP THE STREET), I'm glad to be able to "poke" them and say hi. And to share the present of the present with them.
Which leaves me to ponder: How will social networking media affect our brains? In terms of things like senile dementia and alzheimers? I remember my father, who had senile dementia for probably the last two years of his life (although he managed to hide it pretty well by using notes, etc.) having a hard time remember the near past, but no problem at all remembering the far past. He would get on the phone with a friend from his childhood and it would bring him into the present in ways that calendars and visits with his grown children couldn't.
I wonder if all these new ways to keep track of our lives and the way we have spent our time here on earth will help us stay focused on the present while remembering old times with long lost pals? Or will it just make us more sedentary and prone to the plaque build-up that leads to brain wasting?
In any case, I've really enjoyed getting back in touch with old friends and catching up. And now I really need to stretch my legs and get some exercise!
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4 comments:
In the last month, I've found both a college friend I'd lost touch with, and my first grade boyfriend.
And I think it can be just a very good thing, depending on how you attend to it. (I for one respond to very few requests. Is that rude? Probably, but of course my friends already know that about me.)
Also: Friend me! Friend me!
I heart facebook!!I like it way more than myspace that's for sure:)
My bff from 7th and 8th grade found me through social networking. I love being able to reconnect with old friends!
If repetition keeps things in the memory, I've wondered if blogging will make me remember those incidents I blogged about better than those I didn't, and if so, will I remember my account of an incident, or the incident itself? Even a healthy brain is a sieve.
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