I graduated high school and went to Point Loma Nazarene College in 1984. We all knew what college was for, we would train for a job and were promised a higher income because we graduated college. The problem was that I was an art major. Not just any art major, but an art major who graduated in 1988 a full five years before things like the internet were widely used by consumers.
Below is a picture of me with my college buddies after graduation. We’re hiking in a desert, camping, going to the beach, and now we’re middle aged men texting each other all day:
There was no preparing for the computer revolution of the 1990s… imagine going to college and not knowing anything about the industries to come like EBAY, Amazon.com and Facebook! These companies have changed the face of business and all I got was an art degree. My generation learned quickly and bought our cellphones and posted on the internet and bought stuff from Amazon and used our Apple products like good like tech-heads. Most of us still can’t set the clock on the VCR but that console is going in the trash anyways because we stream our video rentals through Amazon.
I can’t remember if I got on Facebook in 2007, but it slowly took over so much of my social life that it scared me. I fasted from Facebook for all of 2010, but all that did was develop my addiction to Twitter. Like so many other Facebook or other social media users, our lives have been changed. I’ve reconnected to long lost friends I grew up with, even the people I graduated with in 1988 found me and we can see each other’s families or send notes of prayer and support.
My Facebook page has become a live studio experience where I can paint and draw in front of my friends. This isn’t exactly putting on a show, I’m not performing, I’m just drawing with the camera on:
https://www.facebook.com/dougtennapel/
Facebook has become how I check in on my mom, my mother-in-law, my wife and the various clubs and groups of friends I’ve grown to love over the years. Still, it’s hard to like Facebook. I sort of resent it, because I want to meet people in reality and I have to settle for an experience of a few well-posed pics and a glance at 5,000 people’s lives.
I recently asked a question to a group about if they were happier before they got a smart phone and nearly everyone responded that they were happier before they had a phone. My question to you is were you happier before you got on Facebook?