Facebook - Leveling the Social Playing Field

By Serena Aubrey (Copyright, 2011)

I have some cousins on my dad's side that I have only met once in my life. And our lives have been far removed from one another. They grew up in California, while I spent my youth in the household of a dad with wanderlust.

The point is, I never really knew them. But with the advent of Facebook we have come to know one another over the past two years. It's been interesting and fun. I am settled now, living in Vancouver, BC, but I travel the world still, vicariously and voyeuristically through one of my cuzs' travel posts. She is a globetrotter suprema! London last week, a one-day stop at her home in Palm Springs, and Hawaii this week! She loads her posts with tons of pictures with captions that tell you all about what she sees and what she does (btw, I think that is called phlogging). I eagerly check in everyday to see what she's been up to. Her energy blows me out of the water!

And point two is, Facebook delivers unique surprises everyday! Not only do you get to know your friends and family much better, but who they know can also blow you out of the water! For instance, I commented on one of my cuz's posts this morning and a little later another of her friends left a comment on my comment. A fellow by the name of Keith. Keith Richards. What? Keith Richards????? Well I'll be damned, yup, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Hah! That threw me for a bit of a loop. So what do you do, act like a freak? Nah. Facebook is the great leveling agent of the New Age. You just comment back like he's just another friend of your cuz's, cause that's exactly what he is. It must be pleasant for him too, to be able to peak into the lives of more ordinary people who don't have to deal with all the hoopla that celebrity status brings. I am sure that he too lives vicariously on the pages of his Facebook contacts, dropping in and peppering little surprise comments here and there. A way to communicate on a social level without having to endure, what I can imagine could become, the cloying weight of stardom.

And then a little later this morning, another Facebook surprise: one of my business/project network group members sent me a snail-mail card to thank me for writing a feature story on her Thank-You Project. I was totally intrigued with her blog,

http://gracebeforemeals.blogspot.com/

in which she explains her reasons for embarking on a one-year project to send out at least 10 thank you cards per day to try to foster an attitude of gratitude within her own life. Her concept being that she can brighten the lives of others by sending them a real piece of mail "that isn't a bill" through the old-fashioned postal system. And it is true. There is a certain happy delight in opening your mailbox to find a few precious words of appreciation sandwiched in between the daily pressures of life! And as a recipient of one of her expressions of gratitude I can tell you she is right on the money. So here again, the technology of Facebook brought me this wonderfully creative friend, whom I would never have met had it not been for the connectivity it creates. She lives damn near 4,000 miles away from me and yet we have become friends without ever meeting face-to-face.

So to all the nay-sayers who criticize Facebook as a time-waster and a disease of modern technology, I say: you are looking at this all wrong! Facebook has the potential to connect people who would otherwise never meet, it gives people who -- for all kinds of reasons, can't socialize normally -- a chance to communicate on a personal level, it allows family members who do not know each other because of distance a chance to find out who they really are, it creates the opportunity to share ideas and ideals that can better the world, and it allows people to discover their similarities and overcome their differences in a non-hostile manner.

So cuz..............where are we off to next? LOL!