Social Media

I recently watched a movie (I can’t for the life of me remember the name or the rest of the plot) that talked about 2009 like it was WAY in the future. Flying cars, futuristic clothes- the works. We’re not quite there yet in 2010, but sometimes I still can’t believe the strides technology and social media has made. I remember the days of calling our friends on our home phones asking “can you play?” Granted I was much younger back then, but that’s what we did. Or we just stopped by. But if we were lucky we could leave a message on an answering machine, otherwise we just waited until they got home. That's the way life was- lots of waiting and we were okay with that. Now, my brother who is the same age now as I was then, is texting his friends, IM-ing or waiting for his parents to come home to take him somewhere because walking or riding your bike takes too long. It seems to be more of an instant gratification thing. I'm in that mindset now too sometimes, but he can get just way too impatient if a friend doesn't text back right away. He'll text again and again. I ask him why he just won't call and leave a message, and he looks at me like I have 3 heads. Then I feel inclined to say "you know when I was your age" but then I stuff that inside cause I'm not that old! There are so many ways of getting a hold of someone or putting yourself out in the cyber-world it’s amazing. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up. My brother is 12 and I’m 29 and he’s more advanced than I am! I admit, some of it is probably just me. I don’t really instant message, I joined Facebook a little over a year ago and just started to blog. I don’t have an I-Phone (though I REALLY want one) and I haven’t started tweeting- yet. But my old ways have definitely changed to keep up with the new ways of the world. Where I once used to spend hours on the phone catching up with friends, writing notes to pass in the hall in my school days or sending a letter to a friend who moved away, a simple “how have you been” text or email takes its place. Sometimes I’m okay with it seeing as how I seem to have less time to be on the phone, and of course email is so quick. But sometimes, I miss writing a letter to someone and thinking about how excited they’ll be to get it (or am I the only one who loves getting mail?) or the anticipation of knowing you’ll be getting a letter soon. So, in 2011, I’m going to try to bring back some of those old traditions. I’m going to send more letters/cards- even just little simple ones to let friends know I’m thinking of them even if I get to see them. I’m going to make that phone call to the friends I haven’t talked to in 4 months so I can hear their voice instead of the hey-how-are-you text. I’m still going to text and email, but I’m going to go old school again too. I’m still going to Facebook, still going to blog and I think I’m going to join twitter. Even though technology and life is speeding up and it can be hard to keep up, it's time to because some things really are too good not to share right away. And I think I’m going to have a lot of good things to tweet about in 2011.