I re-assess Facebook

The other day my cousin in England posted to her son's Facebook:

"James, answer your phone pleeeease!"

James replied (also on Facebook): "Oh, sorry."

I'm paraphrasing, but I thought it was pretty funny ...

As someone else the other day pointed out to me, Facebook seems to cement relationships. And I think it has done so to some extent for me:

I have become quite "chatty" on FB with a friend of my sister's who I barely knew or interacted with in random social situations at my sister's house. The sister in question (the one who lives in Malden) does not have a Facebook, but she thought it was pretty funny when I told her how much I was chatting with her friend.

I also exchange regular back-and-forth comments with my other cousin (brother of aforementioned cousin), who I rarely see and with whom I had absolutely no interaction prior to Facebook.

What have I taken from this?

One, that family is family, and my cousin and I carry on as if we'd grown up together. Of course, we also did that when we saw one another a year ago ... but I did not realize before how funny he is, having only seen him for about 2 hrs. total last year and before that he was "only a kid."

(But I do recally being at a pub, in England, with him and his father - my uncle, of course - on my last visit, and my saying something quite unexpected that caused him to inhale some of the lager he was slurping.)

And two, that my sister's friend, who I largely ignored at Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house - although she was sitting in close proximity to me - and I are pretty compatible. But I should have realized that before, by the fact that she's my sister's friend and my sister and I are a lot alike.

But there is the down side (I always have to include a down side) -

I read with interest this post that Ari Herzog pointed me to, on his blog. The author, David Mullen, writes:

It happened Sunday night around 8:30. We had two friends over to watch the Super Bowl. I had my laptop out and was rating Super Bowl commercials in real time with other people on Twitter. After the 10th or 11th commercial, though, I realized that I was so interested in the social aspect of sharing an experience online with thousands of others that I was neglecting the people actually sitting beside me in the same room.

It never occurred to me to go on Twitter or Facebook while watching the Super Bowl, but I was with actual people - and I have to say, I did go on Facebook immediately after the Super Bowl ended (I left where I was watching it for home shortly after half-time).

I see an awful lot of posts on FB and Twitter (when I go on there at all) along the lines of, "I'm at such-and-such restaurant" - or, more disturbing, "I'm driving home ..."

But - yikes! - in the end, I've spent a lot of time recently on here, posting about Facebook ... and perhaps people will think I'll blare what they wrote on Facebook on here ... but I try to relate only innocuous things, and without saying who said them ... having said that, if anyone has a problem with it, please let me know!

By the way, here is an interesting post: What Facebook Fan Pages Taught Me About Relationships, by Chris Brogan.