HOW TO WASTE TIME WITHOUT LEAVING HOME: GET ADDICTED TO FACEBOOK

Even as a child, eons ago, I was not particularly interested in pen pals at a distance.  The conversations were much like those addicted to short wave radio communications: "What's the weather like there?", "What equipment are you using?", at which point the conversation was over.  In today's world, the new waste of time is Facebook.  Social Networking has its place as a convenient way to communicate with lots of people and share (believe it or not, more than what they are currently doing like cooking supper or getting ready to shower), but it has other time drawbacks as well.

Today I decided to check out the list of people Facebook thought I might want to know, simply because it steals the names from the accounts of everyone of my own Facebook 'friends'.  What I learned was that I have a granddaughter who corresponds with everyone she ever knew, and that I really don't care to know the people others know.  The list was as long as the number of plastic bottles we would save if we drank well water.

In slightly less than two hours (as I multi-tasked to keep from barfing on the monitor which would not be a pleasant clean-up) I was through the thousands of people on the list whom I don't know and don't care to know.  I'm reminded me of the advice I was given once,' when it works, leave it alone and stop trying to improve it.'.  I'm not sure but Google+ might be an improvement...I'm somewhat loathe to add it to the daily grind.

FACEBOOK AND MARK ZUCKERBERG...

For those of us who have been trained to spot a combination of features that frequently spell
Asperger's enjoy the TV show, The Big Bang Theory.  Sheldon is a stereotypical example of the brilliant, compulsive, socially inept person who lacks typical emotional responses to cues others read differently.

Today I saw the movie The Social Network.  I was told the movie is not true to the actual Facebook and its inception and inventors.  However, Hollywood portrayed Mark Zuckerberg as classic Asperger's..

The difficulty in understanding and acknowledging autism, primarily high functioning autism or Asperger�s Syndrome, by the medical, psychological, and psychiatric community, can lead to misdiagnosis and even failure to provide the services needed for students (Autism Today, 2007).

In 2007, Michelle Fattig wrote  "

People with Asperger's Syndrome are often described, as having social skills deficits, reluctance to listen, difficulty understanding social give and take, and other core characteristics, is typically quite misunderstood and/or misdiagnosed in our country today.

Wikipedia describes Facebook and some history.  For some direct follow-up from Mark Zuckerberg, the 26 year old youngest billionaire, click here.

Regardless of how Mr. Zuckerberg may be clinically diagnosed, he is clearly one of those rare, brilliant, creative people who has proven he has carefully thought out a concept of social networking that no others had thought to shape and develop as he did.  By the way, none of the write-ups of Zuckerberg contain anything about Sean Parker (Napster) in facilitating the birth through adolescence of Facebook as pictured in the movie nor did Zuckerberg comment on him in anything available to me to read.

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NETWORKING NOTES

Merriam Webster:

Main Entry: net·work·ing Function: noun Date: 1967

1 : the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically : the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business
2 : the establishment or use of a computer network

Social networking has traditionally been done before technology was invented to speed the process.  As a child, I know it, retrospectively, as 'visiting' to places I needed to walk or talking on the telephone.  Passing notes in class was another, if the teacher didn't catch you and embarrass you by reading the note to the class..  Later, much later, since I am now what I call a senior-senior, there are so many ways to network it makes me want to turn the clock back to when life was simple however short-lived.that desire.   First came 'chat' on the computer, then cheap phones like SKYPE, easy to do fax on the computer or separate units, mobile phones to cell, then text was added, web pages, blogs, My Space, Facebook, and then the dams burst.   There are so many ways to stay in touch with more people than you ever knew had touched your life or cared what has happened to you..  In fact, it is quite difficult to hide, for those trying to do so.  

Google will track everyone down.  We apparently appear on the marketing networks as they infiltrate our computers with those little programs they drop on us to spy.at what we view, what we buy, and I can only guess at what they see through the portholes of my computer.  It makes the saying "My life is an open book" a truism.  .

Those of us who have always thought of ourselves as social, may be having second thoughts.  I, for one, find myself feeling somewhat anti-social at some of the intrusions.. You may think I am complaining about the contacts by my 'friends'.  Not at all. On Facebook I can choose them to be friends, leave chat rooms when people come on for whom I care little, screen my phone calls, (should I choose, aided by caller ID), or even yank phones from their connections though that is time consuming since I have 9 phones (extensions or remote included) scattered around the house and rarely turn on my cell (#10) which I prefer more for emergencies or calls of my own making.and never turn on at home.

What then and I whining about, you might ask. It is the learning curve that only those under 10 years of age can master quickly; who find these things intuitive and don't spend hours as I do trying to understand  manuals.  The second reason is that everyone I know seems to have more expendable time than I do.  I really find that I am not interested in knowing that 30 seconds ago a friend was planning to cook their supper.  I realize that is small of me but, at my age, I think I have limited brain storage space for trivia and fear crowding out the stuff I really wish to remember.  The only good thing about all this is that what I have written is the worst of my current problems.  Despite fearing the world is trying to use up the rest of my life, I've really got it good.  However, having it good does not mean that there is a paucity of things to complain about...I'm told to keep my brain active.  This works.

WORTHY OF NOTE

A man, kidnapped by his father and taken to Hungary at age 2, now 27, was discovered by his sibling on Facebook. The reunion this week in England is heartwarming though he scarcely speaks a word of English.

There are rumors circulating that Facebook is considering charging for its services.

Geography of a recession.

Bing is another relative newcomer.

Last, a word about Craig's list and some thinking about it being free and what this does to the mercenary markets.