Anti-Social Networks

In 1979, the terrifying horror movie "Alien" came out with an all-together bone-chilling tag line..."In space no one can hear you scream".

In cyber-space, it's kind of the same thing. Nobody can hear you screaming, whether with laughter, fear, or sheer frustration. People represent themselves in some sort of self-constructed image of themselves, and hope that their "friends" in space find them to be exactly like that...

The difference is that most people are not their avatars; most people are a little bit different than what they represent behind the curtain of their MySpace page, or Facebook persona. But perhaps that's the beauty of such a network application...we can truly become what we want to be.

Either way, where it starts to fall apart for me is in reconciling people I actually know vs. their cyber-space persona. Maybe it's me, but people did not just become suddenly hip. People did not just become artfully articulate. And people still make misspellings, despite handy-dandy spell-check apps.

At the same time, I do realize that when people reconnect on Facebook, time vanishes and your remembrance is of the time spent in the past. I connect with friends who I haven't talked to since I was 16 or 17. In my mind's eye, that's where they remain.

Yet a quick scan of their information reminds me that they have achieved much in the time between. Much more than anything I have done, and it makes me a little jealous of their success because frankly I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this fact. I mean, honestly, who would have ever expected some of these folks to end up where they are at this stage of life?

So I enjoy catching up with them, and the banter shared reminds me of times very long ago. But now, the quips are from somebody who I probably wouldn't even recognize and that part sort of bothers me. That we are looking backwards to find our laughter and connection point, vs. using the very talent they've achieved as a starting off point.

I'll have to reconcile this in my own way, but meanwhile I'll try to find even more friends out there who were with me in my youth. There's only a handful of them, so it shouldn't be too hard!