My 14-year-old son laughs if I ever open up Facebook. “No one uses Facebook anymore.” The unspoken underlying statement is “young people don’t use Facebook.” I started thinking about why. I use Facebook mostly as a means to reconnect with people from my past. People I went to college and high school with and fellow colleagues I collected from a decade of corporate jobs and … Continue reading “Facebook as a Link to My Youth” Club
“Don’t look at someone else’s plate” is either a known Russian saying or else it’s particular to my mother. Usually, she said this during dinner when I made inappropriate commentary about how someone eats something. My six-year-old daughter learned a similar phrase in preschool: “don’t yuck my yum.” The phrase goes beyond saying “ick” as someone eats a three-meat sandwich; it’s staring into someone else’s … Continue reading “Don’t Look at Someone Else’s Plate” Club
The newest cleansing rage is not the green smoothie, but the Facebook detox – taking a declared (unspecified) time off from the social media time suck. I took a month off Facebook. I took a break from my daily scroll through pseudo-strangers’ lives, wondering which smiles are real and which ones phony; whose photos are accurate and who is hiding behind childhood images. I also … Continue reading “I Took a Facebook Hiatus” Club
I manage two Facebook accounts; one is my personal page, the other, my husband’s clown business. On most days, on both accounts, Facebook dutifully greets me with this message: “Galina, we care about you and the memories you share here. We thought you’d like to look back on this post from 1 year ago.” (Or 9 years ago.)” I love a good time hop as … Continue reading “Facebook Memories Plague Me” Club
If I’m being completely honest, I never enjoyed viewing my step-mother’s life on parade bogging down my Facebook feeds. She was a postaholic, sharing photos of my 10-year-old half brother’s tennis lessons, playdates, and their twice yearly vacations. She was younger than my father by 30 years and a generation ahead in social media. Last March, my dad and his new family went on a … Continue reading “When Your Family Member Deletes You From Facebook” Club
I lived the career version of Sex and the City, jumping from one rebound job to another in search of the “right one.” For 15 years I refused to truthfully answer the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” When I looked in the mirror, a ghost reflection of who I am stared back at me. My dormant passion burned on … Continue reading “Writing When Your Family Doesn’t Want You To” Club
One of the most time-consuming elements associated with my 365-essay-a-day writing project has been the social media promotional element that goes with it. In the last 162 days, I maybe have spent at least 162 hours (that’s almost a solid week of 24/7) Tweeting and posting and sharing. It has been overwhelmingly easier to share with strangers on sites like Twitter and Instagram than with … Continue reading “I Was the Expert of the Minute” Club
My daughter was born 6 years ago, in the Pre-Timeline Facebook era. This scary period in early modern history allowed friends to post anything they wanted on your page without giving you the opportunity to approve it first. I keenly recall laying in the recovery room after my emergency cesarean section, separated from two other women by curtains, with a painkiller drip. The world spun … Continue reading “Let Me Announce My Own Announcements” Club
I joined Twitter in December 2008 (only 21 months late to the party) and pitched hard from the TweetDeck until 2012. Then I took a break. In those 4 years time, I sent about 1,800 tweets; averaging to roughly 1.23 tweets per day. I’m not sure what that means about me or my life, but I didn’t miss it when I dropped off the Twitterverse … Continue reading “I’m Back to the Twitter Party” Club
HeartsEverywhere 