Facebook changes long distance talks

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - 12:05 AM

My freshman year, you had to use a college e-mail to get a Facebook account. Facebook was where you friended the people you met at a party the night before or those who were in your class.

Your list of friends was limited to your school and the only thing you could do was upload photos or write on walls.

Now, my Facebook friends include my mom, my boyfriend’s mom, my little sister and my grandma.

What was once so small that people outside of college didn’t even know what it was is now written about in Slate and The New York Times’ business section.

The Internet’s social media and their abilities to connect us in a slew of ways aren’t going away. Still, on a daily basis, new social media like Twitter or Facebook won’t really change how we communicate.

For one, they won’t replace methods that already work.

I got a cell phone halfway through high school and it didn’t really change the infrastructure of how a group of friends got together at all.

Someone suggested a meeting place and time. Some people came or didn’t. Some brought friends, made plans to do something else, fought about where to go or when and maybe broke into separate groups.

My sister, four years younger than me, had a cell phone every day of her life in high school and her group came together in the same organic, messy, convoluted way.

What Facebook has been really good at, though, is making it easier to stay connected to people who are far away, whether the distance is physical or emotional.

Pundits are quick to skip over that specific change in communication and lampoon Mafia Wars or ex-boyfriend stalking instead. But they miss the art of telling all your friends you safely arrived in a foreign country where you are without cell phone service.

I can’t always call my best friend in Wisconsin to tell her about a silly hat I just saw, but I can write on her wall (or even post a pic of it).

My younger sister and I had a fractured relationship when I moved out for college and without the ability to joke via texts and Facebook, it would have remained that way.

When Facebook, Twitter and MySpace fall short, other things will continue to step forward and fill the void, whether through another innovation like Skype or relying on the tried-and-true telephone call.

We humans are social. We’re excited about stupid things and we want to share as much as possible as easily as possible.

Gutenberg’s printing press was probably blamed for killing the spoken word the same way that people feared television might ruin newspaper writing, and in a couple more years, someone will probably write about how some new Web site is ruining Facebook messages.

Emily Katseanes is the perspectives editor. Her grandma really does have a Facebook page. Reach her at ekatseanes@nevadasagebrush.com.