Is Facebook Real Life?

I remember it well- the beginning. Myspace, now known as My____ to whoever is still left on it. It gave us the chance to comment on pages, post annoying songs on our profile for visitors to see. I enjoyed the blog feature, as did many of my friends. Top 8 became a funny and awkward way to find out if you were one of your supposed best friend\'s \"best friends.\" So many interesting things happened.

And then came Facebook. The Facebook. Only available to those with a college address in the beginning. We all checked it out..ok.. I guess that\'s cool, we said, only half convinced. It took awhile- maybe a year, for it to be a household name and eventually it took over not only giving us social interaction, but also providing a lot of effective networking for those of us who run businesses, organization or just need to promote ourselves whether professionally or for the sake of feeling vaidated.

Right now a lot of people are pissed at facebook for making a few changes. I get it, OMG, I\'m so confused, poor me. But seriously, it\'s been like three days. If the changes are disastrous, they\'ll be changed back to normal. Facebook has evolved in a more effective manner than any other site out there and I\'m so proud of the way it has maintained integrity and striven to provide value to its users.

Admittedly, I think facebook is great. In a few sentences. Facebook easily and effectively connects me to almost every person in my life. I can keep in tight contact with my close friends, not lose touch with my acquaintances, stay connected to those who\'ve left the State or the Country! I can easily reconnect with people at any time, or be a little bit less connected for a while if I need to.

I can express myself- I\'m a writer/performer..so I like to do that sometimes. I can say what I\'m thinking or feeling, I can share an inspiring quote, I can post that funny video that I think everyone should watch. I can ask if people think my haircut is cute, or I can flaunt it because I know it is.

I\'ve found facebook particularly useful this year. Last November I started a non-profit, and facebook allowed me to take it from a tiny seedling of an idea to a page with more than 700 friends and a steadily growing campaign. It connected me to a mentor who promised to adopt my little campaign and spread it across the world. It has already helped me to share a message with thousands of people.

On the same note, when I decided to start my non-profit, \"That\'s What She Didn\'t Say,\" I had a secret I didn\'t want to keep anymore, that only a handful of my friends knew about. And with one brave click of a button, I was able to take part of my life back and share my secret with whoever wanted to listen. Also several of my friends were able to support me and my campaign by clicking share to give their friends the chance to listen to my message. If I had to handle this without a resource to help me rip off this band-aid, I don\'t know if I ever would have been able to.

Where I have found more connection on this site, so many have found less. I find it all so odd, as it\'s clear to me how much we all just want to connect. We are not sharing our status at least once a day because we don\'t want to connect. But then we ignore people who are not in our top friends. We make snide comments on things we don\'t agree with because we think \"this is facebook and not real life\". There are real people sitting behind computers, logged in- although often zoned out. Maybe it\'s time to wake up and remember a little thing called empathy. Or maybe we can make it a little button that you can click to add empathy to a status. Yeah,that\'s probably easier...