ON SOCIAL NETWORKING

 

I got together with a bunch of old buddies last week at a cabin deep in northeast Oklahoma on Grand Lake of the Cherokees.  It was too cold to fish, so we just sat around and swapped stories, face-to-face, like we used to.

Unlike Facebook, we enjoyed the nuances of character and gesture that only proximity allows.  Unlike e-mail, my friends could easily tell when I was being sarcastic.  Unlike Linkedin, no one was wearing their resume on their sleeve.

But guess what?

Social networking made it possible.  The seven of us were always a loose coalition at best.  But over the last couple years, like seemingly everyone on earth, we’ve all been Facebooking with greater and greater frequency (some through significant others).  Eventually, we had the momentum to pull off a far-fetched reunion weekend way out in the middle of nowhere.

Some have opined that the elaborate social networking tools at our disposal will replace much of the actual in-person socialization we do.  Well, it does help with the details.  Think how many phone calls it would have taken to get seven of us together – flights, arrival times, rides, cabins.  But here in the age of social media, it took exactly zero phone calls. 

Never did like the sound of a phone ringing anyway.

We all arrived in Ketchum, OK armed to the teeth with the tools of our social media trade: smart phones, laptops, 3G cards, so we could keep in touch with kids, wives, the office. 

The wonderful irony?  

None of us could get a signal of any kind.  Social media conspired to bring us together.  And then made sure we’d really talk to each other.  Face to face.  Like old times.  And it was good.