Saturday, July 4, 2015

This is America : My Struggle with Social Media




 Happy Independence Day!

 Busy! That is all I can say. My current job working at Hazelfield Farm here in Kentucky is keeping me occupied. I have not been keeping up with the blog because I simply get distracted. Which brings me to a recent decision in my own life.

 Facebook. Love it, hate it, it has become such a staple of our everyday life and conversation that few people can escape it. It's a useful tool that has gotten far away from being a tool and has become a replacement for real conversation and social interaction. We are more bold and less polite on facebook than we would be in person as we espouse our political and social beliefs, never stopping to consider the consequence.

 I have long had a love hate relationship with facebook. I found myself loathing it and making it known to anyone who would listen that I hated it. But then I would find myself being sucked in to the mindless drivel, aimlessly scrolling through political rants, memes and social upheaval. At the end of it I wouldn't feel good. I felt run down and out of touch with reality.

 I decided to delete facebook from my phone, only being able to access it from my desktop. At this moment facebook still allows me to do some useful things. I'm involved with many reenacting groups through facebook "group pages" (honestly my favorite feature of facebook), and I am able to use messenger to communicate with friends and such. But for how long? I don't know.

 I am trying to figure out how to balance technology with my ever increasing desire to live out of time. To live in a world without facebook and social media. Even this blog may become something I reject at some point. I can't say. I just desire something more real and more tangible.


 I may have some romantic notions about the past, but I can't help but feel we were somehow better off back then. When people and communities were connected by roads instead of touch screens. When a letter was mailed instead of emailed. When dances and music were a common community activity in small towns all across America. When farmers shared tools and implements and traded work. When every town had a baseball team, or two. This is America. Real, living, breathing.

- Jake Book


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