Boomers Become Facebook Friends--Banish Depression and Loneliness

Building Community

After some reluctance, I am now a big fan of Facebook and will be setting up my Twitter account soon.(In fact, I am going to tweet a novel I have been thinking about for a long time and never seem to have the time to write, what with all the www.thimbleberrypress.com writing, business building and development, and parenting my kid, laundry, cooking, shopping, gardening, bill paying--whew! it is a lot for one person. BUT I think I can handle 140 characters.

So stay tuned for that project and I hope you all will give suggestions as I go along. anyway...) I invite readers to come to Facebook and become friends. I have found old friends and classmates from high school and college. Long lost friends--one who is now in Geneva. Had brunch with another who lives across the river from me. Went to classmates.com today and found another 10 or so former classmates/friends and asked them to come to facebook. Love that it is free. Love that you can communicate privately or to the whole group of friends. I'm even starting to love the pictures--need my kid to teach me how to upload and edit, etc. I took a pic on her macbook last week. she has edited it and we'll upload it on sunday night to my facebook profile.

For someone who sits alone in her house most days, staring at this screen, facebook is really wonderful. I feel I am starting to have again what I had as a kid--a big community. I really get it now. I get why my kid loves facebook and IMing. why she is a maniac about texting--I think I will have to get a bigger keyboard or an iPhone or similar touchpad phone to text.

There Is Only Here Now

 The internet has erased time and space--and there is no more there there, there is only here now--we are all one in the internet cloud. The ramifications for us Boomers is profound. Kids grow up and scatter. Friends move away--as I did to far flung parts of the world--all over the US, then to China for several years. And while I needed to shake the dust off my small town feet, my roots got parched because I could never really stay in touch with friends and family in an easy way. Facebook has changed all that. And when I found my drama department pals from UNC-Ch, I was so happy. I began to feel grounded again.

Baby Boomer Depression and Loneliness

 Many Boomers are suffering from depression and loneliness precisely due to severed human connections--they are no longer at their jobs, their elders are dying, their kids are going, their ages are bringing new issues to the fore. But the new social networking platforms are a tonic to depression and loneliness. Anthro 101 and Psych 101 are very specific that human beings are social animals. We travel in packs. We like to congregate.

But some of the conditions of contemporary society obviate our most basic needs and means keeping us connected and happy.  The new social networking platforms are a great anti-depressant.

Join me as a friend on Facebook

www.facebook.com. It's really simple even for a pretty tech mini knowledge person such as I. You go to Facebook, open an account--it's free and you are set. Noodle your way around. Then, go to the "Find Friends" button at the top of the page (or "Search"), fill in my name---'Virginia Cornue" and ask to be my friend. I'd love to be yours.

Here's to raising everyone's spirits!

Comments

[Virginia]

Laura, I was like you as well...but now I am totally in love with Facebook...finding longtime friends, kin, neighbors, classmates and making new ones. It's a joy and hard to resist spending LOTS of time there.

[Laura]

I was a skeptic but was forced to give it a try because of my job. Now I'm hooked. It has allowed me to quickly and easily reconnect with friends I had lost addresses for from 20 years back and that's a real joy.

[Virginia]

Congrats on your new blog and have fun on FB. I'm sure we will be friends.

[Gayle Herbert Robinson]

Hi Virginia,

Thank you for talking up Facebook. I have to admit I'm one of the midlife scaredy cats when it comes to opening a Facebook page and My Space scares the Patooka out of me. But, after what you said about Facebook and I know of some people my age with Facebook pages, I'm convinced to make the plunge in the next few days. I just launched my blog today.(al though it's dated for last Thurs. - a technical boo-boo.) iCafe Midlife Moderne ia a virtual cafe for midlife women presented as a cross between a fictional webcast and reaity television show. We drop in on midlife women chatting, reading, rebounding, knitting, cooking, shopping in a cafe housed in a converted Art Moderne mid-century home. Thanks to you, I'm ready to jump on the Facebook wagon and spread the news. I'll give you a holler when I get on. I would love a new friend, I'm also writing a book, actually it's in the editing phase. Please check out my blog at http://icafemidlifemoderne.blogspot.com. Thanks again! Talk to you soon.
Gayle Herbert Robinson aka Imogene Kiki Kearse, owner of iCafe Midlife Moderne. P.S. Years ago I worked for the ABA, I also freelanced for them (Bookselling This Week) for a bunch of years. I hope you blog about the Expo. I'm sure a lot of your readers would like to hear about it. I hope to be at the 2010 Book Expo.