???Facebook???

Very rarely do I blog for any reason other than keeping family and friends up to date on what is happening in our personal lives. In fact I only started blogging because my brother decided he needed to live anywhere but here and my husband keeps finding ways to take vactaions to Iraq. I like being able to put family events and milestones on here for those interested in my kids mostly; however, this is easy. There is no long drawn out process of picking out styles, accepting "friends," waiting for messages to go back and forth...etc. Every now and then I might change my background but who cares if I don't! Sometimes someone will leave a comment about a silly picture but I don't have to respond and basically there are only a few of you who bother to look anyway and some of you who do look will never read this b/c all you want to do is see pictures of the kids and that is great too!

However, this is as far as I am willing to go. Facebook/Myspace and the like....no thanks! One I just don't have time. Would it be nice to have a little facebook account to keep up with high school and college friends? Maybe, but really if I want to know something about some of them I can either call, text, email, or dare I say it write them a letter. All of which to me would take much less time and would not force me to create an account that evidently Facebook can own now even once you delete it. The more I read about these social networking sites the less I am prone to want one. I read one day how Myspace deleted over 90,000 sexual preditors off of it and now Facebook wants to be able to archive your information in order to use it any way they see fit. I listen to the kids at school talk about having hundreds of friends on their "site" and when I ask how do they know them all their response is, "Oh I don't know them all...they asked to be added so I did." WHAT!!!???!!! I guess I am the only one that scares but kids are putting their pictures on here, passing phone numbers around, and well good grief just telling everything. Even to the extent of saying things on Facebook they would never say to anyones face, therefore, creating a whole soap opera that often leads to serious consequences. I also sat through a conference for librarians the other day at MSU and we were basically "slapped on the hand" for not wanting such sites unblocked at school and encouraged to have our own facebooks in order to visit the MSU's facebook. Well, my response to that is I cannot control what people put on their "social networking" sites therefore there is no room for it in my library. I love technology but often I am afraid we do not pay attention to what we are doing with it and allow the "coolness" factor to overtake what is right and wrong.

Now do I think if you have a facebook or myspace page you are evil or should be punished in some sort of way....NO! I just wish instead of spending our time putting messages on walls and making cute backgrounds we would find someone hungry to feed, help an elderly person rake his/her yard, teach a child to multiply, attend choir practice at church, play in the yard with some kids, get the Sorry! board out and play a round or two with our family, visit your grandma, actually cook supper, shoot even take a nice long nap.

I guess I say ALL this to let the few of you out there that come here know that if you want to send me a message on some sort of wall then you are all out of luck! When we start building the house you can come write a message on those walls before I paint! I would rather talk to you on the phone, get a quick text (I am a great texter), I love getting a good email, and now a days getting a letter from the good ole post master is AWESOME!!! Also, don't assume I am technology stupid just cause I do not want to put myself in harms way to be in this "network"...there are many things I still have to call my brother about and ask how to do but for the most part I am smarter about it than most and just want to be left out of the crazy world of "social networking." Let's do lunch!!!