Several articles have appeared recently regarding the problems some have had with being entirely too concerned with email and FaceBook and My Space and IM and all of the other ways in which we interact with one another these days with the rapidity of the computer age. A neurology research group at the University of Southern California claimed that all of this constant messaging was depriving us of any feelings for other people and tcould confuse our "moral compass." They said that "moral decision making about other people's social situations" needed adequate time and reflection.
But I believe that I understand all of the negative aspects of social networking on the Internet, and I have found that I enjoy FaceBook and all of the craziness that goes on there more than anything else I have tried on the ’Net. Why? Because I have found so many wonderful people who once had been a part of my life and now have come back into it. Former students and old friends alike have brightened my days with their personal stories, their photographed adventures, and their wonderful notes to me. I have watched videos of grandchildren and their daredevil bicycle stunts and looked at very old snapshots of Homecoming Parades from schools at which I once taught.
It all began when two dear friends suggested that I join FaceBook so that we could all keep up with one another faster and all at the same time. What Kelly sent her mother showing what Abby had done this morning, I could see as quickly as Linda; and when Laura sent her mother a note about her son, I knew about Garrett’s successes as soon as Regina did. It kept all of us from having to send multiple notes. Great idea.
And then, one of my students saw my name somewhere (I am trying to remember who that first student was) on FaceBook. Perhaps, I commented on one of the Haltom High pages and he saw my name there. I simply don’t remember. I do know that after that first, one former student and then another began to request that I be a Friend and soon I had more Friends than I could keep up with and I loved it. Faces that I hadn’t thought about in years appeared and those former students began to tell me about the things they had done since they had left high school.
For me, this is all very exciting: to see the accomplishments, hear about the dreams, and know the joys of all those wonderful kids I had once taught. Before, I had known them as teenagers just beginning really to dream of what was to be in their lives. Some had plans; most had not thought of the future yet.
Last week, two invited me to go to lunch with them. I did; and we ate Mexican food and drank very sour Margaritas and talked and laughed for three hours before we each had to go our own way. They brought up fond memories, but mostly they talked about the terrific things that had happened in their lives since they were in my class. They talked about difficult times with parents, with death in their families, with their own teenagers; and they talked about the joyful times, about grandchildren and vacation trips, and family reunions; about their churches and the joy they had found in giving their lives to G-d; they talked about their wonderful husbands and their interesting jobs; and they did seem like very old friends rather than young people I once taught.
And they weren't the first. Before that, I had gone to the Antique Mall to eat at the tearoom there with another dear woman who is finishing her second degree this spring. She, too, had all sorts of stories to tell, but not about marriage and children. She talked about many things she had learned and done while studying at the University; she described several trips she had taken and the places she had been and the places she yet wanted to go. We talked about ideas and about books and movies and laughed at the ones we both had liked and disliked. She talked about politics and about her own independance. And she was no longer a dear, sweet teenage girl in love with movies and jewelry and shoes. She was a strong, independant young woman, filled with ideas and filled with plans, who knows where she is going and is eager to get there.
There are many other young (and older) adults out there with whom I correspond on FaceBook who were once my students; and they have written these same things to me about their ideas and their hopes and dreams, about their families and their jobs, about joys and disappointments. They have written about all the books they have read and the ideas those books stiumulated; and they have written about the difficult times they have gone through trying to get over the earlier crazinesses that came between them and their parents or between them and G-d.
One has talked about his tortured soul and the torch he has carried for forty years; another, about the sadness that comes when a marriage ends and he is left with a young child who doesn't understand. One writes every week about how very much he loves his wife and how happy he is' and the pride in his voice and the joy on his face tell us all that he is quite sincere) while another writes of the pride he has in owning his own shop where he makes furniture by hand.One is a minister in New York; another a major in the Pentagon. One is a fireman and an EMT; and still another is a coach in the high school where I taught English forty years ago; and another coaches his daughter's softball team here locally. All of them together paint a beautiful picture of America; and I am thrilled that I get to read this and know this and see that this country does have a good future with these young adults taking on the job of continuing what so many have begun.
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