Sunday, December 20, 2009

What's Different About Facebook?

Raeanne Gardner Olivier June 21 at 9:34pm
Are you THE Kent Schnake that attended Harris in the 60s?
Kent Schnake June 22 at 9:27am
Yes I am. Are you the Raeanne who went on the hayride with me but wouldn't let me kiss you :-)
Raeanne Gardner Olivier June 22 at 11:41am
hehehe...Yes, I am, but I hope you won't hold that against me...Surely the statute of limitations has run out after 45 years..

I remember Raeanne very well. But when she wrote to me, that was the first communication we had had in about 44 years. I suppose there are other ways that our paths may have crossed. However, she still lives in Metairie, LA where I went to junior high. I am in Oregon thousands of miles away. We have no friends in common that we have stayed in touch with. And I am pretty sure that if we had walked right past each other on the street, we may have had a fleeting sense that we knew each other, but I doubt that it would have prompted us to speak.

What's different about Facebook? It enables me to maintain a bit of social contact with folks in Louisiana, Chicago, Seattle, Latvia, Tanzania, Norway and more. It is almost effortless. We don't have to write to each other, we can just check our news feed or take a look at each other's walls. We can share photos and even videos. Snail Mail, Telegraph, Telephone, Radio, TV, and E-mail don't work that way. There is a fundamental difference.

I am watching and wondering how it will impact the world.

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