the great leslie

We live in an increasingly online world. (I know, I know: newsflash!) In the past year, I have learned about virtually every major life event of my friends and acquaintances over Facebook or other online haunts. Birthday greetings, death notices, and birth announcements: all seen for the first time on the screen of my Dell. Don't get me wrong: I don't eschew technology. But when a man I've known half my life balks at my writing in a notebook, with a PEN ("You don't see people writing things by hand anymore."), I have my doubts about this full-on conversion to the online world.

Today a Web board I belong to reported the death of a college classmate of mine. Several of my friends had their first babies this year; I saw their pictures online, not receiving a single birth announcement in the mail. Last week I got a Facebook message from a friend telling me her boyfriend had been shot. With a gun. Is that the kind of thing you expect to read on the number one social networking site? (Thankfully, the boyfriend is fine.)

I had a discussion about this at the bar downstairs recently. The Internet is certainly the fastest and easiest way to get information out there. Sad news needs to be shared as much as happy news does. I don't expect to read about shoot-outs when I open a Facebook message, but it's not like I'd have been less shocked if my friend told me over the phone. No doubt it was much easier her to let Facebook deliver the message; it is, after all, how many of us stay in touch.

The practicality of the Internet is obvious, but I still find something unsettling. I believe it should be an additional way to communicate, not a replacement for all the other ways.  Is it just because I'm still getting used to it? Nobody misses the Pony Express at this point, but some might have lamented its demise. Or because part of the personal connection of communication is actually getting lost in the universality of the Facebook interface?