Monday, June 10, 2019

One decade on facebook

Yes, today marks one decade of me being on facebook!

And to celebrate, here's a facebook video link 
https://www.facebook.com/pablo.wegesend/posts/10211109849222057



Now, i want to quote from a 2014 blog post

"Facebook's 1-decade anniversary" from February 2014

https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2014/02/facebooks-1-decade-anniversary.html

Facebook allowed me to reunite with people in my past and allow them to be a part of my future! 

Facebook has broken down barriers in that it allowed me to get to know people that I only had a few interactions in person, and it allowed them to get to know who I really am! 

Facebook also gave allowed us to share articles, music videos and photos with each other, giving us greater access to information out there.

I'll go as far as saying that Facebook is one of the greatest inventions that occurred in my lifetime. Thank you to the founders of Facebook. And more importantly thank you to everyone on my Facebook friends list, I really appreciate you all!

Being on facebook wasn't my first adventure with social media.

Towards the end of summer 2005, I started using Myspace. With myspace, you can design your own profile and you can use it to contact long-lost classmates. At the time, I was in my mid-20's, so the former classmates weren't that "long-lost", just a few years of separation. 

However, myspace was more teen oriented and people my age were starting to migrate to Facebook, which had a more mature image. Also, the Myspace audience eventually aged out and the new generation thought of myspace as "old".

By the summer of 2009, one of myspace friends mentioned that our 10-year reunion was being planned mostly via Facebook. That was one of my main motivations to join Facebook.

In just the first few days of being on Facebook, I found former classmates that I couldn't find on Myspace.  Within a year, my Myspace use dramatically declined as I became a daily Facebook user.

Within the next few years, more and more of my former classmates joined Facebook. I also used Facebook to connect with distant relatives and former co-workers. 

With all those people as an audience, I basically revealed interests and activities I only previously shared with certain people.  So it was amusing that an auntie was surprised by my nightclub photos, something that would've surprised ABSOLUTELY NOBODY who knew me from senior year in high school.

I've also learned many new things about people who I've "known" for a long time. Some came out of the closet. Others revealed great family difficulties (ie deadbeat fathers, deceased parents) that affected through their youth, making me aware of their personal pain that I didn't even know they were going through when I went to school with them. 

Facebook also allowed me more interactions with former classmates that I didn't interact with much during our school years.  

Facebook also allowed me to share some socio-political thoughts with my audience. Problem is,  anything political can end friendships. That happened multiple times during my time on Facebook. Can't win them all! 

However, I have definitely detected some personal growth from my Facebook friends over the years. Those who I thought "omg, that person hasn't grown up since high school" eventually distanced themselves from posting inappropriate stuff and showed great strides towards maturity. Also, many former classmates started having children so the contents of their posts have changed dramatically.  In many cases, many new parents did dramatically reduced the amount of posts they put out there mostly because they just didn't have time for Facebook anymore. 

In some cases, some people have gotten worse as adults compared to when I knew them during the school years. I had to distance myself from a few.  Sometimes, you just have to move on!

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Besides reuniting with former classmates, Facebook's great benefits to me are that from the articles we share on Facebook, I learned many new things.  Whether it's about psychological/emotional situations I never understood before, human rights abuses here and around the world or the great programs that uplift the people, I am grateful that Facebook gave me more access to information than before. Many times, it's because some of that information is covered by online media outlets I probably never heard of before someone shared an article on Facebook. I am also grateful for those articles because they gave me information that I was able to use for my blogs. 

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Now for the links to my previous blog posts about facebook. 

"one year on Facebook" from July 10, 2010
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2010/06/one-year-on-facebook.html



"Facebook and Pop Culture is GREAT for the world!" from July 2011

https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2011/07/facebook-and-pop-culture-is-great-for.html