Transitions

BlueMem #4 The start of an addiction  :-/

        Facebook-I remember the first day I ever created an account. I had finally given up on the MySpace movement and was actually fine being off of the internet. When I first learned of Facebook, I really didn't understand what all the hype was about. I just couldn't wrap my head around how this website could possibly be better than MySpace. I mean you could personalize your background on MySpace, have pictures changing on your page, and best of all you could choose a song that almost always represented either your current mood, your current hate for someone or your new found love interest. Facebook didn't give you any of these options therefore I was no interested in creating an account!

                After being disconnected from social websites for about a month, my friends relentlessly harassed me about creating a Facebook account. I really didn't want to though; I mean I really, really didn't want to! Facebook just looked boring to me. After a while though I gave in and finally created an account. I rarely went on in the beginning, but after I started to get into the swing of things I found myself going on Facebook more and more every day. Before I knew it, I was on Facebook at least several times a day and then it just escalated from there to several times an hour. Facebook was like a very addictive drug to me. I had to be connected at all times.

                 I love the whole idea of Facebook- you know giving people the chance to stay connected with old friends and make new ones, but my like for Facebook kind of stops there.  I'd like to say that it changed my life for the better by giving me the opportunity to connect and say connected with new and old friends BUT…………. it didn't. All it did was enhance my procrastinating skills and trying to rid myself of it use to seem impossible. After about two years on the social network I have learned things get really redundant on Facebook really fast and that has reduced my desire to go on Facebook as much as I use to.   In his piece "Growing Up Tethered" Turkle describes the collaborative self as one that needs to connect to complete feelings or thoughts. Well when it comes to any of the social networks such as Facebook or MySpace, this claim has a lot of truth to it. People who are actively on Facebook or MySpace use these sites to evoke some kind of feeling or thought. This feeling or thought can be expressed explicitly or be expressed with a quote or a song. Using myself as an example, my collaborative self needed to be connected to something or someone to express a feeling or thought. Even if I didn't always use Facebook as an outlet, I needed and sometimes still need to connect to something to get emotions out.  

The Painful Text Message

BLUEMEM #3-Inducted into the Exclusive Cell Phone Society

         The first day of Junior High School is a day that I can never forget no matter how hard I try. I had a lot of emotions built up for that day, I was nervous because I did not know if I would end up in a classroom with the friends I had already made in elementary school. I was happy because I got to wear the new pair of sneakers my cousin purchased for me the night before and also a little pissed because my new uniform required me to wear a yellow button down shirt that was as bright as Big Bird’s feathers( I am not a fan of bright colors). BUT!! The thing that made me most happy about about starting Junior High was the fact that I was finally receiving my first cell phone. 

All of my friends already had a cell phone; most of them received their phones over the summer. When the first day of school arrived and my mother handed me over my phone, it felt great to finally have my phone in my possession; it was mine and I was going to use it as much as I could. My middle school didn’t allow students to bring in their cell phones so I had to hide it in my bag and keep it hidden for most of the day. When lunch time finally came, I was able to take out my phone and get all of my other friends numbers. It felt so good to finally be apart of cell phone society. Me and my friends texted each other during lunch time for fun, but we were extremely cautious of our surroundings because if we got caught with our phones they would be taken away from us until the end of the year.

By the end of the school day, I was texting any and everyone I could. As I walked home, I texted my sister telling her how my day went. I texted my best friend telling her that I would call her on the phone later that night and I texted my cousin to inform her that I finally received my first cell phone. It was a great day. I had gotten though my first day of classes, didn’t have any homework and had a phone that I could devout all of my attention to. In the midst of all of my texting however, I failed to acknowledge what was going on around me. While I walked close to the edge of the sidewalk, I had my face completely into my cell phone. When I was finally done with my text message, I hit the sent button and as I looked up, I bumped head on into a pole. My nose was throbbing and I felt a lump start to develop right in the middle of my forehead.

In his writing “The Nostalgia of the Young” Turkle discusses how the desire to constantly be connected to our phone or the internet has become so apart our identities and sense of self that it is almost impossible to rid ourselves of this dependence. My memory of the day when I received my first cell phone supports this idea because as soon as I became apart of what I saw as the “cell phone” society, I could not rid myself of this desire to always be connected. I walked right into a pole and hurt myself because I wanted to let others know so badly that I was now available at their every text.