Our kitchen was a mess. The trash was overflowing and dishes from the past week was still stuck in the sink. Don't get me started on the living room. Evidence from the late night we all had before laid all over the floor and covered the coffee table entirely. Notes, papers, coffee mugs, pens; name it and it's probably there.
During the odd intervals that I have in between classes, I always find myself alone but it didn't necessarily felt like I was alone because I'd usually be on the computer and the I'd always have my instant messaging turned on as well as...Facebook.
I could easily kill and hour or two being on Facebook. It's not that I play some of the ridiculous Facebook games but just browsing from page to page and looking at profiles, pictures, notes, videos, what have you kills time so easily, doesn't it?
Wow. Just typing that out gave me the shivers. Our lives, being reduced to mere pages. Our entire personality found on a...profile? What does that even mean today?
I did a Facebook fast because it had just dawned on me how rapidly my world has changed. I know we all talk about it. Technology, media and all that snazzy stories with jargon but this one for me isn't just a topic we discuss in class over a 50 minute period. It's real. It's not someone else's experience; it's mine.
My brother is 12 and the very first thing he does is when he gets home from school is log on to the computer. I see 10 year olds holding iPhones in their young palms. Mother's reading to 4 year olds using Kindle or iPads. They call it eBooks.
We plan birthday parties, graduation parties, celebrations all within a click of a button. "Invite" We wish someone a very happy birthday within 2 minutes of seeing the birthday reminder on Facebook. We view someone's great European backpacking trip over the summer within a half hour and leave various "comments" on them. Instead of saying hi we "poke" someone?
When I was 12, I spent every afternoon for a month leading up to my birthday party on the phone with my best friend, planning every single detail and making up the ever so important guest list. Then I had to muster up all the courage in me to invite that one boy from that one class who made me feel that one way, to come to my party. Before Facebook, we'd make it a point to remember each others birthdays and stayed up til the midnight just to wish that person a very happy birthday.When my dad came home from Europe, he'd have a bunch of his friends over at the house, have dinner and viewing the pictures he had from Rome, the tulips from Holland, the kilt he wore in Scotland and the wine he drank in Italy.
And now, all these significant, important, almost precious moments or fellowship that people can have with another is being reduced to one single website? To think about it, it's not even tangible.
To extents, I feel a little bit sad for kids today. Back then, you'd be happy with your Pokemon cards and Harry Potter novels, or Sweet Valley High even! (remember Elizabeth and Jessica?) I'd never dared ask for the latest XBOX or Halo because I know my dad would've shut me up in a rather painful way (also because I've never been much of a gamer.)
Today, kids are not happy unless they have something electronically stimulating in their hands. Boys don't wrestle and girls don't read books anymore. What happened to the times when fun meant 5 p.m. in the evening, grabbing your bikes, meeting your friends in the park, scraping some knees and not being home until it was dark outside? What happened to the times when "coming online" actually was a big deal, that we'd schedule a time when all of us could be online together and for certain time periods specifically only.
No, I'm not saying that Facebook is the devil and that technology is driving humans down the wrong path. If you have made your mind up about me in that way, then you are terribly wrong and ignorant. Change is inevitable. Every decade experiences something brand new and that's how we mark the growth of civilization. For me to ignore all of the changes that have occurred would be utterly naive. I know I can't live in the past and hey, believe it or not, it was actually REALLY REALLY hard for me not to be on that darn website!
I guess the point to me doing this is just kind of remembering the childhood I had and what a privilege it was to have been born during that era. I'm sure all of us feel like that at some point in our lives (I know my mom does because she's constantly talking about how different it was in the 60's!) and I think it's just good to remember where you come from and where you're going.
I'm just glad that I had all that. I know what it feels like to come home with bleeding knees and ripped shorts. I know what it's like to receive a ton of text messages when the clock strikes on your birthday. I know what it's like to flip the pages of an actual photo album together and have that same sense of excitement as someone else in the room.
And as a kid, I definitely know what it's like not to care about having the iPhone 4 or the Macbook air or my internet speed because all I was really concerned about was seeing if my Digimon had evolved, or if my Tamagotchi died or if I was home in time for the next Amanda Show!