My name is Elaine and I’m a Facebook addict!

At my daughter’s insistence and with her help, I joined the social networking world two years ago just prior to leaving for a year in Japan. It has been a wonderful way to keep in touch with friends and family around the globe and I’ve also enjoyed reconnecting with some I’d lost contact with.

My Facebook friends list has grown to include over 200 people. Though the number in my generation who are using social networks is increasing, many on my list are much younger. Several are former students who sent me friend requests while I was in Japan. I was delighted to have an opportunity to share what we were experiencing with them.

Having them on my friends list and seeing what they post has also given me a window into their lives and I must admit that I don’t always like what I see. It was recently suggested to me that the schools need to start including internet etiquette in health or life skills classes. As a retired teacher, I’m the first to protest the downloading of what ought to be parental responsibility onto the schools. There’s been far too much of that already. In this case, however, where most of the youth are much more internet savvy than their parents are, I realize that if the teaching is going to happen at all it may have to fall on the shoulders of the schools.

One of the first lessons that needs to be taught is the fact that, in spite of the fact that Facebook and other similar networks include security features that allow users to choose who sees what they post, the internet is far too public a place to air dirty laundry. I’ve heard it said that you shouldn’t post anything that you wouldn’t want a future employer to see. I have twice cautioned young friends to be more careful about what they say about their present employers. Both, after a frustrating day on the job, chose to rant about their bosses. Though they didn’t mention them by name, in a community as small as ours it was obvious to anyone who knew them who they were complaining about. In both cases, the young women in question saw the wisdom in what I said and quickly deleted their offensive messages. Some time later, I was delighted to see one of them give similar advice to another acquaintance!

I appreciate the opportunity that Facebook has given me to dialogue with a wide variety of people. Obviously, we don’t see eye to eye on everything. The give and take of ideas and opinions is what communication is all about. Unfortunately, however, there are those who aren’t willing to consider opinions other than their own. Some of them feel empowered by the delete feature that allows a user to remove comments that they don’t like or to remove the people who make them from their friends list. Disagree with someone? Simply delete them!

I have been deleted by two young ladies recently simply because I dared to disagree with them or to suggest that they think about a particular issue from a different angle. In a sense, they both did me a favour.

Social networking has allowed bullying to spread from the hallways and playgrounds of the schools to the internet. One of the girls who deleted me is a high school student who has been a classic bully and a manipulator since early childhood. She also has a brilliant mind, however, and a dynamic personality. If she ever got her life going in the right direction, she’d be a force to reckon with. Unfortunately, when I chose to disagree with her and she couldn’t twist me to her way of thinking, she chose to delete me. Though it means that my opportunity to have a positive say in her life has been cut off, I am spared seeing the negative things that she says to and about others.

Though I’ve never yet deleted anyone, in the case of the other young lady who deleted me, I might have had she not been a relative. I was very tired of having my Facebook news feed cluttered with the details of her sex life! I really don’t need to know each time she sleeps over at her boyfriend’s house or that she was fooling around with him while still married to her ex. I am concerned about the fact that she’s going through a messy custody battle but when I expressed an opinion about that, I was deleted.

Awhile ago, I was beginning to think that perhaps I was getting too old to keep up with today’s rapidly changing technology. Through recent Biblical study, however, I have come to the conclusion that I was born for this generation. My being here at this point in time is not random. It is God-ordained, part of a much bigger plan than I will ever fully understand. I also believe that being part of this generation means embracing it’s technology and using it for good.

Therefore, I am Elaine and I am a Facebook addict!