The tune is called “marimba” and it wakes me up everyday. My iPhone, which is always found charging perched upon my bedside table, also serves as my convenient alarm clock. If I am having trouble getting up, I will take my phone off the bedside table, since it is always within arms length, and drowsily check any missed texts, upload any new e-mail, check my facebook newsfeed, and lastly check the weather. As you can tell, my cell phone may as well be my firstborn child, and I am an overprotective mother. As I write, I am basically cradling it in my lap as it sleeps and the second it wakes up and cries I will respond. I would say I spoil it, but the reality is it spoils me. It allows me to constantly be in touch with friends and family, and provides me with access to the Internet on a whim. It keeps me constantly up to date on emails and facebook. If I had to estimate, I would guess that I spend about two hours on facebook everyday on average. I was forced to open a twitter account for one of my classes, but did not acquire the desire to continue tweeting and following others. I am not familiar with Foursquare since I'm assuming we are not talking about the schoolyard recess game.
It is difficult for me to decide if social networking is more negative or positive as a whole. I believe that there are certainly both positive and negative outcomes and many unintended consequences of the social networking phenomenon. The positive benefits are nearly innumerable. The ability to feel connected to those who are not geographically near is amazing and really has changed the way we relate to people. It allows you to maintain friendships and become a member of an online community that may not be available to you in your current location. However, I do think the constant connection to the invisible network distracts us from the present. Being constantly wired in somewhere else is a shield to avoid possible real life present human connections. I am picturing examples of social recluses who only communicate with strangers through a keyboard and the less extreme example of people checking their phones to avoid an interaction with someone in front of them. The same tool that connects us may also be alienating us simultaneously. In addition, it is extremely difficult to ever get some of that needed "alone time". Can we really call it alone time when we are checking e-mails, texting, chatting on the computer, and available for anyone to reach us at any given moment?
I am generally pretty conservative when I post something online. My facebook profile is private if someone is not my friend, and I hide my tagged photos from everyone. As a risky move and a major test of parent-child trust, I have allowed both of my parents to become facebook friends. This has been the root of many family debates and has resulted in many threats of “de-friending”. For example, jokes that others have posted on my wall are perfectly acceptable by college student standards but do not transfer over to adults, and I have been frustrated by their reactions. I certainly worry about the privacy of my information. When you use facebook you sign away the rights to your photos and the words you post are all property of facebook. I don’t think many people realize that they are signing over their personal property to a company. In addition, even though my profile is private, all my college photos will be on the Internet forever with no real control over who will be able to see it. There are many embarrassing photos of me on facebook, and while they don’t really bother me now, they may in the future, and they will be on the Internet forever.
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