The Perils of Facebook

I've been thinking about Facebook over the past few days. In particular, I've been thinking about how facebook-- and the internet more generally-- limits or complicates our ability to evolve and grow as people.

My niece got a Facebook when she was 11. Although I was glad to have the chance to see her grow-- she lives very far away and I hardly ever see her-- it struck me that what she was posting then is not what she will be posting in a few years once she's in high school. Right now, she's just posting pictures of her cat. But in a year or two, she will probably start commenting. She will post status updates and maybe even articles.

Many status updates are opinions. I am all for young people expressing those opinions. I feel lucky to have grown up in a family where my opinions were listened to and valued. They were also challenged, so that I learned to stand up for my beliefs. And, as those opinions were challenged, sometimes I realized that they were flawed. Sometimes, my opinions changed.

The difference between a Facebook status and an opinion expressed by a child with their family is that the internet is forever. Even if you delete a post or change your privacy settings, you never know who has taken a screenshot of what you said. So, when you are 23, someone can bring up something you said when you were 13. The development of your opinions and your beliefs is documented. And because seeing what a person said three years ago is as simple as scrolling down, it's easy to make judgments on a person in the now based on who they were back then.


Then there's college.

When you go to college, you meet all kinds of new people and make all sorts of new friends. Your world opens as you encounter people you would never have interacted with in your high school town. Rich people meet poor people, American students meet international students, city mice meet country mice. My parents' generation could compartmentalize. When interacting with people back home, they didn't necessarily let on that they were now protesting against the Vietnam War or getting involved with civil rights groups or going to wild parties. But now, everyone sees everything. Social movements invite people to action through Facebook events. After a party, all the photos go up on facebook and everyone gets tagged. Facebook allows some flexibility with the privacy settings, but it's easy to get mixed up and let something slip through. All this makes it really hard for a kid trying to figure out who they are in the world.

I hope my niece's generation will be able to deal with this. I understand why my parents feel overwhelmed. Things have changed so much in the past decade. Change isn't inherently good or bad, but it creates new challenges for people to confront.

The Library - Part I

Few things have brought me more joy over the course of my life than my local library.

I have certainly had instances of great happiness completely unrelated to the library, but it has been a constant presence since before I even learned to read. As a small child, I would pull a picture book off the shelf and "read" to the stone owl that sat in the children's room. I didn't yet understand how the letters on the page formed words, so I looked at the illustrations and created my own stories. I would beg my mom to take out dozens of picture books, most of which she never had the time to read to me. That didn't matter. I took in the pictures.

Even after learning to read, I loved Dr. Seuss, Serendipity books, and Bill Peet for their colorful and imaginative illustrations. But I also enjoyed Chris Van Allsburg, best known for Jumanji. His stories, like his illustrations, were darker. Things less whimsical than downright strange occurred in the eerie worlds he created. The Wretched Stone in particular sent chills down my spine. While I love fantasy of all kinds, I am sure Allsburg is partially responsible for my interest in magical realism.

I didn't read all the books at my library. That would have been impossible; I was fortunate to have an enormous collection at my disposition. But I did read a great number of books growing up. In the summer, I would check out 30 or even 40 at a time. I rarely read them all, but I read several a day, sitting in a fort I'd built or in the shade of a tree. My library kept my mind busy. With all those books at my beck and call, I was rarely bored.

Box of Chocolates

This Valentine's day, my friend's boyfriend handed her a wrapped present.

She unwrapped it. It contained a beautiful box and, inside, some cheap chocolates.

Her boyfriend took the box from her, dumped the chocolates in her lap, and put the box in his bag. "Sorry," he said, "it's my mom's. I promised I'd give it back."

The Elements of Style

Family tradition dictates that all young women receive a copy of Pride and Prejudice for their sixteenth birthday. I remember receiving my own copy: a thick, illustrated, hardcover edition. I still have it on the bookshelf in my old room, although when I revisit it I prefer the paperback version. I've never been able to read from hardcovers. I'm too concerned about the binding to really crack it open.

Some distant ancestor (or not so distant-- I'm pretty sure my great-grandmother started the trend) decided that Pride and Prejudice was a life-changing book and an important gift for 16-year-old girls.

I loved Pride and Prejudice and it was life-changing. My encounters with Jane Austen mark my shift from pure fantasy to capital-l Literature. I still love a good fantasy novel, don't get my wrong, but Austen's works convinced me to branch out a bit.

Pride and Prejudice is not the only book to have changed my life. Another book, one without the popular appeal of an Austen novel, had an equally strong influence on me: The Elements of Style.

When I first read The Elements of Style, I had a rare spiritual moment. I could hear the angels singing down on me as I followed Mr. White on his grammatical and stylistic journey.

"But, P," you might rightfully ask, "you don't follow all the style rules outlined in the book!" Yeah, okay, get off my back. I love the book, but I don't consult it before every single post! Here's the thing, though: this slim volume can really teach you how to write. If you follow its instructions, your writing will improve. And given its contents, it's surprisingly easy to read.

If I have children, I'll give them a copy of Pride and Prejudice for their sixteenth birthday. But I'll give them The Elements of Style as soon as they enter high school.

Love letters

While doing some research for a personal project, I stumbled across the story of Emma Hauck, a woman with Schizophrenia who lived in Heidelberg, Germany at the beginning of the 20th century.

Letters of Note writes that she began writing letters to her husband, supplicating him to visit her. The letters contain pages and pages of "Sweetheart come" and just "come." I found these letters tremendously sad. I imagine her being so lonely and scared, with those letters as her only hope, and yet as Letters of Note says, they were never sent. How scary it must have been to find herself losing control of her senses, far from the people she loved.