I sat in the classroom listening to the professor excitedly talk about technology for use in education. I was all for the slick new software that allowed easy graphing of a linear function; I love the software that does all the complicated statistical calculations for me; I love the ease of editing with word processing software; and most of all I love having the information of the world at my fingertips 24/7!! But, I never thought I would be an avid user of social networking sites.
Members of my cohort all had MySpace and Facebook pages—they Skyped regularly and I had only just heard of Wikipedia. I certainly did not know that I could create my own wiki any day of my choosing. The professor then said the “B” word…blog! Why in the world would I be interested in reading random writings of people I do not know? What motivates people to do this? I honestly thought the world had lost its mind or perhaps the world changed around me and I was no longer relevant.
A bit of background (if you are intrigued you can read the bio here in my blog…click on About River), I am 47 years old and the last time I was in school the internet did not exist, big hair was popular and the world was ruled by Springsteen and Bon Jovi. Computers were extremely large brutish machines that existed only in extremely large brutish companies. When I was required to write a paper about stereoisomerism or the development of August Renoir as an impressionist, I went to the library at school (Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California… a lovely place, but that is another story) and…of all the crazy things checked out books on the subjects. I typed the papers on an electric typewriter, switching back and forth from ink to correction tape and learning to loathe the sound of the keys hitting the paper. Making changes was not a simple feat of cut and paste, but sometimes requiring the re-typing of perfectly good pages. So before I go on a rant or get caught up in nostalgia—back to the topic at hand: much had changed in the educational arena since I was an undergrad student.
I resisted the social networking and focused on the conveniences that technology afforded. Then it happened…I created a MySpace account to stay in touch with a particular person. Then I created a Facebook page and Facebook showed me all the people in my address book who also had Facebook pages. I slowly grew into Facebook and it proved to be a easy way to stay in touch with friends—especially those who I did not talk to regularly. From there it was easy to succumb to the lure of social networking and I now have a blog (obviously since here you are) and the nail in my coffin—Twitter.
I tweet daily and I enjoy it. There is something satisfying to putting your thoughts, comments, feelings, and the like out for inspection. I find the anonymity to be freeing (River isn’t my given name) and at the same time reading/answering/writing tweets make me feel connected to the world in a way that was unexpected, yet pleasing. Blogging, for me, is a way to think out loud and share my opinions and share the experiences and perspectives of others. It is my internal dialogue given voice without the side-effect of seeming insane for talking to myself. Remember, evil—like beauty—is in the eye of the beholder.
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