I have heard people railing on facebook as a time-robber or as giving us the illusion that we are friends with our “friends” or that it’s addictive. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any particular loyalty to facebook, but I’d like to offer a different perspective…it’s my “home-town newspaper”.
When I understand the function something is playing in my life, then I can appreciate it for what it is, and not expect more than it’s able to deliver.
People have been reading daily papers for a long time. Small town papers are great to keep us up on what is going on in the lives of our community, but so many people have moved away from their small towns and made friends in many places that we have to construct our communities in new ways. I love that I can build an online community consisting of people I have known throughout my whole life. I can look at your pictures (how long would it take me to sit in each person’s living room and physically look at your family photos?), find out what you’re doing today, share party invitations, read about the things that are on your mind and hear about concerns for which I can pray. I have become inspired by videos my friends have posted, or I’ve laughed hysterically. I learned that my childhood friend lost her mother, and I could keep her in my prayers. I saw the photos of my long-time-friend’s vacation, so when I saw her in the grocery store, I didn’t have to say “Whatcha been doing lately”, but I could say instead “Looks like you had an amazing time in the Bahamas”.
Like I said, I am not touting facebook because I have any particular affinity toward that social networking site, but I am more suggesting that our perspective influences our attitude. I enjoy looking at the daily news of my friends to keep their lives fresh in my mind. Understanding perspective helps me to hold things “in their proper place”. That sounds like an old-fashioned phrase, but I use it to mean that I recognize the purpose of a thing and I appreciate its usefulness in my life.
Unfortunately, the temptation arises to impose my perspective on others. I am coming to know that what is good for me is good for me. Each one of us has to decide that for ourselves. How we decide what is good for us is another discussion, but we nonetheless must make those choices and give our friends room to do the same.
So, my home-town-newspaper perspective makes me look forward to reading your status updates, looking at your pictures and anticipating your comments to me. If you don’t have the same perspective, then I guess you won’t read the daily paper, but I also hope that you won’t mind that I do.
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