Social Networking or Social Disease?

Social Networking or Social Disease?

Instantaneous, easy e-communication is addictive. You are never alone.  There is always something new.  There is a feeling of forward motion.  My Wine Road, winetimewithTR.com, facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, wineroad.com, email, youtube- yikes- alternative reality!   As the Jets told dear Officer Krupke, “no one wants a fellow with a social disease”.  And yet this is an epidemic of immediate, constant, never-ending e-communication, and we are all caught in it.

My children say that facebook is ruined by all the businesses and “older” people jumping in there.  When facebook started, only students with a legit university or college affiliation and email could be on it- and it was ALL personal stuff- pure social networking.  All that changed with the influx of businesses into e-communication- facebook was just way too good to pass up as a fantastic way to conduct business.  After all, is a Cookie Lee or Weekenders party really a PARTY?  Or are they all merely business opportunities masquerading as personal events?  I thought that friends do not ask friends for purchases.   Weaving spiders come not here, even if all this is on the aptly named World Wide WEB.

Now we have Wine Road on facebook for all to follow who wish to become fans. My blog is there and our featured wineries, lodgings, events and such.  When I became a fan, I had to sign up to be a member of facebook- and my kids allowed me to “friend” them.  Eerily, I often learn more about my daughter’s life in Seattle from what her friends write on her wall than I do from her.  I have become friends again with kids from my high school class of 1974- people who I have had no contact with in 35 years have found me and I have had a peek into their lives.  Reminds me of that scene in ANNIE HALL where Alvy Singer, as an adult sitting in his former classroom, asks the children where they are today: “I used to be a heroin addict- now I’m a methadone addict.”  Well, it is addictive, seeing all those photos, comments and wall-writings.  Oh yeah, and I follow Wine Road, of course.  But I sometimes feel like I emerge from facebook after days have passed and I am engulfed in a separate, more attractive reality.

Our ED, Beth, pictured (ahem) at left, is also on twitter where she tweets. (Why is it “tweets” when “twitter” is itself a verb or a noun?  Why does one not simply “twitter”?)  We often joke that I am the ‘friendly one”, but there is Beth tweeting away.  And she is LinkedIn as am I.  All this instantaneous, immediate communication is informative- but it is also time-consuming to not only read but to produce and post.  People have just got to get tired and tune out sometimes.  Wine Road is a fun place- so our fans enjoy seeing what is going on along it- and can immediately follow their favorites.  We never want to intrude- merely offer.  With Wine Road, it IS personal.