Is your Marriage as Good, as it Looks on Facebook?
October 25, 2016
Facebook is the public square. I do not go around complaining about my wife’s idiosyncrasies in public. I do not complain of her obsessive tidiness, and she doesn’t document my sloppiness. We do post celebrations; the photos we want to remember and share. My marriage isn’t as good as it appears to people from the outside in the real world or online. My sister in law lives in Southeast Alaska she takes lots of photos with many sunny images, yet in reality there are very few sunny days in Southeast Alaska. Who would want blurry photos of the six months of rain, clouds, and cold? We do not live in a movie or TV show with a sound track and special effects; it is real life. I post what I want to say sometimes knowing a post isn’t for everyone, but just my friends in Seattle. Others times I post something knowing I am ticking off a few of them. I keep lists and post my most political to a narrower list. It may seem I operate without filter, but I exercise editorial discretion over the public pages I manage. Facebook is a tool of communication in our current society. Everyone interacts with it differently, but millions interact through it.
Following my travel adventures on Facebook
I enjoy being able to share in the joys of people’s lives and hope they enjoy ours. Many of my friends on Facebook are people I have never met in person. Therefore I don’t want to know every detail of their lives. I can still enjoy their interesting posts. Erik once said old people would ruin Facebook; he foresaw a world of technically incompetent people endlessly passing around the same inane jokes and cat photos. This is why young people keep running to new social media platforms where they can share their cool lives with each other and not their parents. Facebook isn’t about coolness; it is simply an easy to use communication medium.
I had the unusual realization the other day that my wife was not home. I had gotten up trying to be quiet and not wake her, I was drinking my coffee, then checking email and Facebook and twitter, yes and others. I do have too many information sources. ...
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