It’s the start of another year, but some things remain unchanged. At this moment, thousands of my colleagues are experiencing the effects of a glut of health conditions that can result in premature death and the onset of diseases most people will never face.  We wait, impatiently, for research scientists to discover the elusive cure for paralysis. That cure is unlikely to help many of us who are wheeling around today if we are so out of shape and unhealthy that we are seen as not able to benefit from whatever cure protocols are discovered. Read More

In some respects, I am a dinosaur. For months and years I have resisted persistent pressures to take up the cause of social media and join friends and family in a constant flow of messages or tweets about inconsequential activities of daily life that seem to occupy too much of our time. I really do not need to know what the head of a federal agency had for breakfast or what type of meetings they have been in during the morning hours. There is such a thing as information overload, or is it overkill?

The crushing blow arrived when my daughters advised that they would no longer be sending photos of grandsons to me directly. Like everyone else, I would be forced to join Facebook to view photo albums that were being updated frequently and would otherwise be unavailable to me. Reluctantly, I joined.

At first, my involvement was minimal. By posting an old photo (from the days when I had hair) for my profile and listing a few basic facts about myself it was possible to receive notifications when photo albums were being updated. It didn't stop there however.

Soon I was receiving Facebook e-mail messages that stated someone who I had known only peripherally in an earlier life had “friended” me and would I accept their invitation? I was completely unprepared for the constant barrage of friend requests. While I didn't remember them, since they were five years behind me in high school, I didn't want to offend anyone who might really be interested in getting reacquainted with me. After all, who knows what type of action might result from the crushing blow of being rejected for a friend request? Would my failure to remember them show a lack of social grace on my part? I could imagine these rejected friends telling their therapists about the damage I had done to their fragile egos, even though I didn't really know them.

Little did I know that every friend of my newfound friends would see that I became a friend with their friend and would jump on the bandwagon to request to become my friend. I now realize that I could have a serious impact on the quality of life of perhaps thousands of individuals who might someday wish to become my friend because a friend of their friend became my friend. Some of the friend requests are now coming from organizations with hundreds of members, and then I'm torn between saying no because I don't know most of their members or saying yes just to minimize the damage I could possibly do to so many fragile egos.

As a dinosaur, I never played Dungeons and Dragons, Super Mario or the more complicated games that occupy younger generations. We spent our scarce idle time with Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and checkers. Now I am invited to create virtual farms, adopt endangered or zoo animals, play mythical characters in online games, become a fan of something I don't even understand or “poke” somebody back. Not only that, I am being given the responsibility of telling my newfound friends who they may want to invite to be their new friends or what type of profile picture they should paste on their homepage. That's a lot of responsibility for a dinosaur.

I now realize that social media is another name for a disease that has potential worldwide pandemic implications. My web browser is open to Facebook, and every time a friend of a friend posts something I get a reminder to check it out. No matter what I'm doing, I'm drawn to open the browser and take a quick look just in case it might actually be of interest or have some connection to my life. Some of my friends even bought Blackberries or other types of ‘smart phones’ so they could keep track of Facebook all day at work without violating company or agency policies against personal use of their work computers. I am still resisting that impulse.

It used to be common that I would send out periodic e-mail newsletters to family and close friends in order to keep them advised of my status or news of the day. I even maintained a list of those who actually mailed me Christmas cards so that I could mail them a Christmas card the following year. Sometimes I would even attach photos to my e-mail messages, or send out a joke or two. Those days may be gone forever.

I don't belong to You Tube, nor do I twitter or tweet or whatever it's called. I have watched videos sent to me by friends, or clicked on those links when they appeared on Facebook. While writing this, I have only checked Facebook three times and then only because e-mail messages urged me to do so. I learned that two friends of friends have become fans of things, and another friend commented on someone's photo that I didn't even see. A few months from now I'll let you know whether social media has actually enriched my life, or simply made it more complicated.

Now what's with those blogs?

Copyright 2010. Michael Collins