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Facebook: A Writer's Meandering Thoughts #2

Time collapses online and so it is with my visits to Facebook this last week, or two, or three. I have been consulting both my daughter and my niece about the proper security settings and continue to tweak these. Because I had chosen e-mail notifications for everything, I was receiving links all day on my email account. I could not resist clicking on these—more friends!!—but did not notice for several days that I did not have to log-in to Facebook, my Home Page came right up with a click off the email notification. This was alarming particularly as I seemed to be getting more spam, unfiltered by my Norton security system. I then received three junk cell phone messages and a spam message from an email address (I thought I knew) referring directly to the phone calls: “I called you three times last night.” Who called me? I have no idea. Needless to say, I have revisited all my settings and re-set them, and changed my Facebook password.

So, what have I enjoyed? Mostly, contact with relatives who live far away. There is a sense of immediacy in status updates, wall posts, photo albums, and so on. I even sent my son-in-law’s mother a sunflower yesterday as she wasn’t feeling well.

Whereas my first blog entry on the subject of Facebook was light-hearted, this one is less so. I am still perplexed about the nature of Facebook friendship and its rules. Who do we invite, block, or remove? Who does the same to us, without notification? Does a friendship have a chance to deepen and evolve? Two old, dear friends I had a falling out with over the summer have taken me off their “list.” I have removed their daughter because I was getting her news feeds, saw pictures of my two, old, once-dear friends, and was reminded each time of them and our rift. Too painful. And no opportunity to discuss at length on Facebook, or resolve, or move forward. A line firmly drawn in cyberspace would have to be erased another way. Has the “removal” on Facebook exacerbated the problem? I’m not sure.

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