Social Media has revolutionize social interaction. In fact Facebook has succeeded in removing the most socially awkward aspects of that classic post adolescent ritual, the High School Reunion
This was brought home to me recently when someone one from High School started a group page for my graduating class.
My high school years were difficult on a good day, I had the full complement of adolescent woes: acne, asthma, angst, I was small in stature and not particularly athletic....need I go on? I received very little acknowledgment of my existence and felt pretty much ignored.
Needless to say, I had few buds and really hadn’t kept in touch with anyone (What kind of memories would we share? ”Hey Mike, I’ll never forget that gym class when you sounded like a tea kettle every time you exhaled...good times, man!”) so I was surprised when I received a slew of “Friend” invitations.
Well, “Why not”, I thought. We’re all adults. We do have a shared experience. We’ve all been “around the block” a few times and, regardless of what we were like as teenagers, we probably have more in common now.
I approved all of the “Friend” requests with a brief “Personal Message” that went something like, “Hi, Good hearing from you. This is what I’ve been up to. Let’s catch up soon”, and was curious to see who would respond.
Nobody responded. Not one. Nada. I’ve tried commented on other peoples “Status” reports. I’ve commented on other people’s comments. I have had people send me virtual fish, toys, drinks, and I got one invitation to battle Ninjas but I haven’t gotten any replies to my personal message.
I received very little acknowledgment of my existence and feel pretty much ignored... JUST LIKE REAL HIGH LIFE SCHOOL!!!!
What is this phenomena? Why “Friend” someone you have no intention of being friends with? Are they merely “Friend Packing”, adding names to their “Friends” list so that they can appear to be more popular than they really are?
I also noticed something equally interesting....many of the people who’ve joined this group do not use a profile picture, preferring instead to hide behind the default Facebook silhouette, or, in some cases a picture of a dog, a cartoon character or some other generic image.
Then it hit me, Facebook has perfected this particular right of passage.
High School Reunions present us all with three potential moments of terror:
You run into people who don’t remember you (“I sat behind you in Math, we dated for a couple of months, we had a child, is that ringing any bells?”)
You run into someone who is as big a jerk now as they were then. (“The ‘milk through the nose’ stunt never was funny, especially when you used someone else’s nose.”)
People remember you but you look completely different than you did in High School. If you look better than you did people might ask “What happened to you?” as if to say, “Wow, you used to be such a loser.” If you look worst than you did people might ask “What happened to you?” as if to say, “Wow, you turned out to be such a loser.”
But there are no such risks with a FB - HSR! It removes all possibility of direct human contact. You never have to pretend you remember or even like anybody and it doesn’t matter what you look like now! It limits your exposure so you can re-connect without connecting! You don’t even have to get dressed!
Can the Facebook marriage be far behind.