Yesterday as I was taking my daily rare mid-afternoon Facebook break, a Wall post caught me eye.  A friend had commented on a page entitled “You Know You are From Broomall when….”

Curious, I linked over and there went the rest of my afternoon. You could hear the giant sucking sound miles away.

The page was filled with hundreds of memories all posted by my contemporaries remarking on the town where we grew up in the 1970s.  There were comments about the stores, the schools, the teachers, the parades, the neighborhoods, the carnivals and the families. It was if the computer pulled me in – away from my grown-up life – and back to a shared and cherished time. And there we had conversations about how it used to be.  But I don’t think many of us knew how much we cherished that time until now.

So I dove in, posting some of my own memories from my elementary school (that was demolished last year.)  I commented on the town orthodontist who fancied himself a cowboy (is he still alive?)…  a department store called Two Guys that had a mini bowling arcade and the best soft pretzels (now a Giant Food Store)…. a home economics teacher we all called Torpedo Tits (and rightfully so).

I never thought I would say this because it sounds so “old” but I really did grow up in a simpler time, although arguably it didn’t seem so back then.  If you had told me as a child that years from now there would be no such thing as “penny candy” or my kids wouldn’t be remotely interested in decorating their bikes with red, white, and blue streamers to ride in the town parade, I wouldn’t have believed you.  In the 1970’s we children roamed free, our parents didn’t know where we were (and didn’t need to).  And from that simplicity– all the adventures and memories sprung.

Today I know exactly where my kids are at all times and can track them electronically.  We don’t let them wander too far or eat too much candy.  And there are no more scary teachers to star in childhood folklore.  Has modern age and “progress” sapped all the memory making material from our lives?  What will be our kids memories?  And their legacies?

Late yesterday,  I saw another FB post from a friend in California who had commented on a page “You Know You Grew up in La Mirada when….” So stay alert MoB readers — this meme about YOUR hometown might be coming soon to a FB page near you.  If so, I urge you to link over.  Or better yet – start a page.  As the posts are going up every 10 seconds, I am watching my own history unfold before me and its amazing.

Technology is both a blessing and a curse.  No where else could we have ever submersed ourselves in times gone by so broadly and efficiently.  It never would have happened in the physical world.  So I am feeling very smitten with Facebook right now for allowing me and all my friends from Broomall, PA to delight in each others very good memories for a few days.

And in the same breath of gratitude, I am also sending a prayer that decades from now when my kids reminisce about their childhoods, they can come up with equally worthy memories – and not just ones about all the time they spent on Facebook.

It’s like “I voted for him before I voted against him.”

Anyway, it’s all so silly, and so 8th grade, and therefore so perfect that there we were, sitting in the epicenter of social immaturity – lab desks in the middle school, scene of seething emotional drama every single day – chatting stiltedly.

I was surprised at how much response my FB notice caused.  Some people sweetly reassured me that they would never defriend me. Others were appalled.   Another said she had received a Friend Invitation from someone she knew – who had dissed her -back  in 5th grade, and therefore her sweet revenge was to decline the friend offer. 

As I am friends with a number of my goddaughters, nieces, and others who are still teenagers, I check out their FB pages occasionally, and am happy to see no sniping or backbiting.  Quite the opposite. 

FB is quite possibly the best thing that ever happened to the fragile ego of the teenage girl. 

Under every photo, friends comment “UR so PRIITTTY! ))” and “OMG U R GORGEOUS” and  ”LOVE U 4EVER!!!!”  That giddy, super-loyal emotion that bonds young girls together is magnified to the 10th power on FB.  These girls are constantly swearing loyalty to one another and slathering on the compliments.  (Note:  this is not true of the FB pages of guys).

If ever a young girl is feeling upset or insecure, all she has to do is go look at her FB compliments for an instant dose of confidence.   That’s the upside.

The downside?  Oh, the inanity.  I hope never to see another photo of teenage girls with eyes crossed and tongues out.  “SO FUNNY LOLOLOL  hahahaa.”

Also, I can live without ever seeing another Charlie’s Angels pose.  Back to back girls, hands clasped and index fingers together, pointing up!    “OMG U R SO SHEXXXY” 

My sons grouse that they are sick of girls who do the jumping photo. Get used to it, guys:   The mid-air leaping shot is tremendously popular.  It will never go away.

We are all tired of FB teens describing every uncomfortable situation or photo as “awkward.”  My sons report that this is now shortened to just “awk.”

So anyway, I thought today was an appropriate time to bring up these observations, as we are on the eve of the new movie that implies that the founding father of Facebook stole the idea from his real-life friends.  Pretty awk, Mr. Z.  Good thing you’re giving $100 million to the schools in Newark, NJ to deflect attention from this bombshell.

But my big question is, have you defriended your accusers yet?

Scintillating conversations like “Take this down,” and “Jk haha” and “no duh” can occupy hours.   My favorite line from one of Hugh’s friends, after a string of stupid comments and obscenities from the posse, was “Yo dudes, my mom is on here.  Cut it out.”

For once, I was not the mom being referenced!  Another kid’s mom had been friended by her son!  And was watching!  Chalk one up for the parents.

Recently, while scanning Malcolm’s latest FB hijinks, I saw that he had taken one of the many fascinating and highly accurate quizzes available, and learned that he was to marry a girl we shall call Esmeralda.  This is a real person from his school, a member of his friend list.

Immediately his guy friends piled on, making scathing comments about Esmeralda, her weight, her appetite, her undesirability.  Appalled, I ordered Malcolm to remove the entire thread.  Canyou imagine how devastating it would be for the poor girl in question to see that?  I hated having boys tease me in the hallways at school – but those were fleeting and unrecorded moments.  With Facebook, insults and mockery are now shared with the entire Facebook friends community, witnessed by hundreds or thousands of jeering onlookers.

Despite protests that the whole thing was a joke, he did as I commanded.  When I left the room,  he unfriended me.  It took no time to figure that out, and I insisted on immediate reinstatement. 

Times have changed.  When I was 12 and wanted to know who I would spend my life with, I’d go find my friend Karen.  She was a wizard at folding paper into those pointy origami Cootie Catchers which foretold the future with messages like “You will marry someone really gross.”  Or we used a Ouija board or a Magic 8 Ball.  The fascination has always been there.  Only the technology has changed.

One of Chris’s friends from college (a real friend, not a FB one) recently sent a conversation that his teenage son had conducted on FB, while using his dad’s computer.  The kid forgot to sign out, so the dad saw the whole thing, and saved it.  He said “At first I thought it was poetry.”  It did look like that – a long series of short, ragged lines.

In their shorthand, these two boys had carried out a complex discussion about a girl.  The chat began in a friendly way until it became clear that both boys liked the girl, began fighting over who was more worthy, hurled insults back and forth, decided she wasn’t worth ruining their friendship over, and patched it up with a “pfff, k man” and a “sall good.  see u @ lnch.”  It’s time-stamped, so you can see that the entire drama took 20 minutes of constant typing.

 The coup de grace was an good natured, joking obscenity against their former dream girl, who had done nothing to deserve the insult except inadvertently cause them to fight.

On another level, this provided a glimpse into Planet Guy.  I have to admire the economy of emotion and the ability to quickly recover from a feud.

As I said here a couple of days ago, Facebook is the new agora of adolescence.   Dramas great and small are played out in this highly public marketplace.  It’s mostly all in fun, but when it’s not, it’s awful.

We should all be watching what our kids are saying, and what is being said about them, on the screen.

We met at the home of the Well Read Hostess, and Kristin is indeed both of those things.  Also in the house were a dozen other local bloggers, but we missed Emily, who was at a cheerleading competition.

Sun shone through window prisms, sending little chips of rainbows around the walls, and the refreshment table was full of irresistable temptations.  As a centerpiece, Kristin even had a giant fishbowl full of little notebooks and ribbon-tied pencils stamped PHILLY BLOGGERS.

Nobody was at a loss for words, as you can imagine.  One of the biggest conversations was detonated by mention of Facebook and its fad, “25 Random Things About Me.”  We all agreed we hadn’t participated in this because that would be blowing 25 potential blog posts in one fell swoop.  I enjoy reading them though, and still write the list in my head, especially the random fact that I once got into a catfight with a transsexual at a wedding. 

But back to Facebook.  We bloggers, only one of whom was under 30, don’t spend money to send cartoon cupcakes on birthdays, we don’t throw snowballs, we don’t join groups, and we’re not too sure if we should tell the moms when one of our teenage friends curses like a sailor or puts up compromising photos.  I am in contact, superficially, with so many people that I’m confused about what tidbit in my head came from a real-life conversation and what came from Facebook.  Plus, how important is it to know that my son’s nursery school girlfriend’s mother just got done walking the dog and is thinking about a bath, or that my college classmate doesn’t know what to get his wife for her birthday?  

My line in the sand is drawn between Facebook and Twitter.  I’ll do one, not the other.  I can barely update my status on FB once a week, let alone tell cyberstalkers what I’m doing every hour or so.  And why would anyone care?  And how embarrassing would it be not to have anyone following me on Twitter?

All these means of communication have snowballed.  And that giant rumbling sound you hear?  It’s an avalanche of verbiage bearing down.  I’m a writer, and I love this blog, and there are many other blogs I read religiously, but we’ve reached the point of hyper-insane-overcommunication, people.  I am part of the problem.  

Or, to quote my son Hugh when he was two years old and being cared for by a logorrheia-stricken babysitter who hadn’t permitted five seconds of silence in four solid hours, “Too much words!  My head hurts!”  

*******************

That said, if you’ve got the time for lots more great reading, check out members of Philly Bloggers on our blogrolls off to the right.   These are way more worthy than trolling for the latest profile updates of your friends.   Trust me.