Lesson 6 Part 2 Challenge

Sadly we've all heard about women and men who were killed after a face-to-face with a person they met through an online dating site. Pedophiles target children. A man disappeared after answering a job ad posted on Craigslist. These are examples of the worst aspects of social networking. Sadly, too, many people want to substitute online chat for personal interaction. There are hoards of men and women who would rather text than sit down with a person and have an actual conversation. Yes, social networking has broadened our worlds, but in some ways social networking has given some the ability to create nameless, faceless relationships.

Lesson 6 Part 1 Challenge

This article felt like a walk through history. My first exposure to computers came in mid-1970s when I worked for Baker & Taylor. The mainframe was housed in a huge room and the building had to be kept ice cold so the mainframe would not over heat. Now I hold the equivalent of that mainframe in my hand - my smartphone. I became a Facebook users when SAPL completed 23 Things. Admittedly I started the page for the challenge, but over time I began to use it more and more. Now it is a constant in my life. Yes, I have connected with a lot of folks from high school and college and former workplaces. It is nice to keep up with their lives through FB. I get to see photos and short videos of my nieces and nephews and of my great-nieces and nephews. They are growing up virtually. My three-year-old great-niece can work a smartphone as well (or better) than I can. There's a big difference in how to access information today versus using the old clunker CompuServe way back when. I had a subscription to CompuServe in the early 1990s and let's just say using it was clumsy. Several years later I would sit and chat with foodies on aol.com. Can any of us forget that horrid modem squak? At the time we lived in rural Northeast Oklahoma, so our connection was long distance. You couldn't stay online for very long. Today we're connected 24/7 almost everywhere. There are a few places on the map where coverage is spotty, but those are few. Today using the internet is so simple and so seamless that many people can keep a running patter during the Grammys or Oscars or Emmys. It's like having a viewing party, but not really.