The Power of Facebook

I’ve had several conversations lately with friends who have not yet jumped aboard the Facebook train.  While some had concerns about privacy and opening up their lives to the world, there was a more practical admission from most - an account would mean information overload and yet another timesink in lives which are already overloaded with tasks and to-do’s.

I can respect the reluctance to open up that Pandora’s box of information and old memories, and I think everyone who’s on Facebook can look back and laugh at times when they’ve lost themselves in looking at pictures or bouncing around different peoples’ profiles.  As Rhett and Link so aptly sing, we’re “all hooked, on Facebook”.

Yet just when you’re about to label Facebook as an epic waste of time you’ll get a friend request from a high school friend with whom you’d long ago lost touch.  Better yet, you and this long lost friend will trade messages and you’ll find out the he’s coming up to New York for the weekend and would love to connect in person.

That’s exactly what happened this weekend as a group from a church in Greensboro came up to the city for a conference.  After connecting online and organizing our schedules via Facebook messages and texts, we were able to meet up Saturday afternoon with five other Western Guilford graduates: Tripp Graziano, Susan Marie and Matt Cook, Joe Peascoe and William Everett Bailey.  While we had remained in touch with Tripp over the years and seen Matt and Susan Marie several times, we were able to hang out with Joe and Will for the first time in more than 7 years.

It was an absolute blast to catch up on old times and take the crew down to Lombardi’s for a taste of New York pizza from the oldest pizzeria in America.  There was a little bit of the “name game” as we caught up on what everyone is up to from our high school class.  As we parted ways leaving the subway we all had huge smiles on our faces, all of us glad that we had made the real world connection happen.

So yeah, I’d say we’re hooked.  We’re hooked on Facebook.