Facebook switched over to the new version last night. I don't find it as user-friendly as the old one. But since it's a free service, can those who are protesting the change and asking for options really exert much influence? I think not. After all, what are you going to do? Switch over to a different service that your friends and relatives might not be using?
A friend was having difficulty viewing the albums--a problem with the switch-over? Or something else? Maybe it's just the browser, but I find the new Facebook clumsy and unresponsive. Perhaps it is a good excuse to stop frequenting Facebook. What can Facebook do that e-mail can't? (Sharing photos had been a bonus up to now, but if people are having problems accessing photos... there's always the blog or e-mail.)
As I suspected, I haven't heard from the last HS person I added as a friend on Facebook, on whose wall I had left a greeting. What is a reasonable turn-around time for such messages?
With official or business-related e-mails there is usually an expectation of a
prompt response--one needs to acknowledge reception of the e-mail at the very least, if a response is not yet ready:
Responding promptly is the courteous thing to do. Don't let folks wonder if you received the email or are ever going to respond to their communications. Think about how quickly you would return a phone call or voice mail. Email is no different especially considering most onliners have expectations of a faster response since email is received so quickly. Outside of any emergencies such as surgery or lack of connectivity, always respond as soon as you can. If you need more time, longer than 48 hours, to gather your thoughts, simply pop off an email stating you are planning on responding in more detail and when.
What about e-mails between friends? There is more leeway, but even a lengthy period of time without a response can try a friendship, and the lack of a [prompt] response requires an explanation, no?
With the convenience of e-mail and the internet, it is easy to expect a somewhat quick response.
But just as phone calls may not be returned right away because of other pressing concerns, so it is with e-mails. So the problem isn't necessarily with the format, but with the recipient--one needs to keep track of what calls or e-mails need to be returned, lest one forget.
Affection is not a reliable motivator for acts of friendship; often duty must be added to affection, or act in its stead. Do people need to be taught how to be a good friend? One would think that this is something we would learn 'naturally' but maybe even living in accordance with friendship must be learned both through word and example from our elders.
What then of 'informal' messaging through social networking sites? Are they of the same importance as e-mails? I would think that the normal assumption is that people check these sites less often than their email, even if the websites can inform account holders that a message has been written to them through the website. But if they are checking their accounts everyday... I'm not expecting more than a one-sentence greeting, just an acknowledgment that they read mine and an expression of good-will, even if it's not that sincere.
The lack of a response gives one the impression that one is not taking the contact seriously. For (former) high school or college friends -- is networking more than putting up a historical record of the contacts people have made in their lives, their associations and friendships? A pretense that these past associations still have some meaning or relevance now? Or is there something else lurking behind the desire to network, a mentality that maintains past associations as friendships of utility? Or is it just to get an ego-boost from the numbers, and also to indulge in narcissistic displays?
There is the danger of blurring significant developments of one's life with what is mundane--too many updates can lead to one's notices being perceived as noise and thus ignored. If one needs to talk about one's life, isn't it better to do so with friends and family, and not through electronic media if possible? Why announce it to an online network, even if it is limited? Such casual sharing seems to pertain more to narcissism than to generosity or true friendship. (Now perhaps in some rare emergency one is stuck without a phone but has access to the internet--but I think even then the tool for urgent communication would be e-mail, if not something even more expedient, and not FB.)
The utility [and morality] of sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster depends upon those using it. Still, one can ask whether such tools are good, that is serve the purpose for which they serve. Rather than enhancing friendships and communication, such websites may reinforce bad habits. It seems to me that one doesn't need such websites to stay in touch with good friends--the phone or a letter (or even better, face-to-face conversation) is preferable and more worthy of the friendship. Therefore, at best, such social networking websites supplement the other forms of communication, and cannot replace them. (After all, who uses them to write long messages, when there is e-mail? Which raises the question of privacy and how secure free e-mail services are.)
Given that reciprocity is a key feature of friendship, what is one to do, then, with the rest of the friends? What is the purpose of maintaining those links, if nothing is being done to 'grow' the friendship? (Being separated by a great distance makes communication even more paramount to the maintenance of friendship.) Fruitless and therefore pointless? I think I could lose 60-80% of my contacts and my life would not be affected very much. I did give in this Summer and added some contacts from Xendom, but for the most part I ask myself, "What was the point?" We don't exchange short messages frequently, or engage in longer conversations, online or otherwise. Is the need to not be alone a good enough reason for maintaining some semblance of contact?
Virtual community simply does not satisfy the needs of the heart or the soul. It is enough to fulfill the demands of charity and past friendship through prayer and other acts of charity. (In that respect, then, FB could be useful--one can communicate prayer intentions quickly.) Loyalty, affection, and attachment can be difficult to suppress, and loneliness make this even more difficult, but it's necessary. But the longterm solution of 'getting a life' does not yet seem to be something I can pursue at the moment, so I can get along with life as best as I can. At this point it is very unlikely that I will be going to the HS's 50th Anniversary, at least not to see classmates. It's funny--one reason why I left Boston was to get away from certain dead-ends. Soon none of my peer friends will be left in Boston. Physically getting away from a location can aid in getting emotional distance. But since I can't leave California to achieve that with respect to the dead-ends here...
I have an impulse to just shut down all such accounts and live free of such sites like my sisters, but some people do keep in touch, and I sometimes hold out the hope that maybe one day things will get better. But my guess is that is not going to happen. The other alternative would be to cut down on the contact list so that it reflects reality better. But for now I'll just leave things as they are...
wiki:
List of social networking websitesIt struck me that often in departments academics are very much alone, for all the talk about fostering an academic community. In some respects they represent the secular counterparts to hermits and monks, or medieval teachers, of whom they are the heirs. But, they may have families at home to keep them company. And rather than pursuing wisdom and meditating upon truth they are engaged in a narrow focus of study, contributing to the encyclopedic project or pursuing individual glory (or both, since they are not mutually exclusive). Do academics need friends? Undoubtedly. But what sort of friends do they get by with?
Looking at classmates from high school, I recalled the competition to get into a "very good" or the "best" colleges, unaware of the scam in which we had been taken in. There was (and still is) a huge premium on demonstrating 'leadership' skills. Hence certain people wanted to get elected to office in clubs or student government, and the top tier looked for extracurricular activities to list on their college applications.
But leadership is not just issuing commands and directions; it requires charity, or at least justice and benevolence. There is a discontinuity between enterprises ordered towards producing something or achieving some good external to the practice and communal life. Political leadership is not the same as being a CEO or the president of a student body. We certainly were not given in our high school education a proper understanding of citizenship; nothing remotely approaching what the Greeks or the medieval republicans might have taught, or [some of] the American founding fathers.
I remember during a celebration of my sister's graduating class from university, one of her classmates wrote down that she was a extraordinary minister of Holy Communion as a part of her background information. It still irks me, the amount of pride people take in being some sort of lay minister. I remember being told that one needs to assert one's activities and accomplishments in order to get ahead in the world, because academic achievement or potential wasn't enough.
Why would I trust public schools (or many private ones) to be able to render an accurate judgment about character? I find much of the application process, especially to Leviathan U., to be a farce.
I was also thinking of medical schools that reject you for not adopting their public policy goals or concerns -- leave them with a big '--'. I certainly don't need that kind of grief from the faculty. A doctor is a technician -- there is no guarantee that a doctor has great virtue or moral wisdom.
Techne does not necessarily entail the possession of practical wisdom or the moral virtues, even if both can be found in some. How one lives one's life (especially with or without temperance) can have an impact on one's health, so a doctor can address that much. But to broader questions relating to general justice or politics? Or giving more general spiritual or moral advice? I think not. So if I were back in that interview today... would I be able to say this to his face? I wonder if I could be so confrontational.
The foolishness of the world. There are so many false substitutes for personal contact and knowledge of another person, and yet so much of modern life (including government) has made itself dependent upon them.
As for how things are going: I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
So in addition to political blogs and discussions, I'll be trying to avoid FB for a while. I should probably just go on an Internet fast as much as I can. A re-evaluation of blogging is in order--I need to get out of my head, rather than indulging in the self through blogging. That's enough narcissism for one post...
Walking away from it all and moving to a small town once I have enough money looks really good right now. In the meantime dropping out of the world and tuning out... @ Costco?
Rod Dreher:
Twitter and the transformation of friendshipFrom the delightful Erin Manning:
Ordinarily friendship begins when people connect both mentally and physically--not in a "physical relationship" sense, of course, but in those thousands of little ways we communicate beyond the verbal. A seemingly uninteresting person suddenly smiles a roguish smile or gives you a glance that can only be described as a look of kinship, that "fellow feeling" that the poet says "makes one wondrous kind," if I'm not horribly misquoting, and the dynamics of the conversation change, ever so slightly. The person who was a stranger at the beginning of the encounter has been bound to you, by the end of it, with those gossamer threads that may one day be woven into a tapestry of friendship--and behind both the words and the images, the thoughts expressed and the serious or silly or tragic or dramatic or dryly humorous way they were expressed, we have caught just a glimpse of the soul.
Words alone, however well or honestly expressed, seldom pull aside that curtain behind the eyes to reveal the spirit beyond. How often do we make the mistake of thinking we really "know" someone we've only "met" online, on a blog or a forum or an e-mail list or some other virtual "coffee shop" of desultory conversation, only to meet them at last and find the experience unaccountably disappointing, or even depressing? Worse, how often do we meet someone from online in a group setting, and feel frustrated that the person we're used to communicating directly with, and who seems to be giving us undivided attention, is now pulled into a dozen different conversational directions with the complete thought left so unfinished, compared to words on a box on a screen that give us all the time in the world to express every part of what we wanted to say?
Misc:
The Physician in the 19th Century « Jane Austen’s WorldThere is something in the
book about understanding the world of Jane Austen on doctors... how social respect was not accorded to all who practiced medicine, but only to a certain type. Another book I haven't had a chance to read through yet.
Edit.
I was thinking... another drawback of Facebook is that it is tough to let friendships fade when you're still connected to people electronically through a social networking site, even if that tie is tenuous. Just 'unfriending' someone would seem to require an explanation (unless that person doesn't happen to notice). On the other hand, it seems better to let things dissipate rather than cut ties abruptly, unless there is good reason to. (A friend becomes an unrepentant serial murderer, for example.)
One doesn't intend to start a friendship only to abandon it later. One more reason to avoid getting involved with such websites--they can complicate life too much by with their emphasis on convenience.
