Growth through loneliness

Peggy Orenstein the NYT Magazine: '...a study published in 2007 in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggested that hanging onto old friends via Facebook may alleviate feelings of isolation for students whose transition to campus life had proved rocky. Evidently they took comfort in knowing that “Dylan is drinking Peets.”

That may well be, but something is drowned in that virtual coffee cup — an opportunity for insight, for growth through loneliness...'

'Perhaps my nieces will find a new way to establish distance from their former selves, to clear space for introspection and transformation. Perhaps they will evolve through judicious deleting and updating of profile information, through the constant awareness of their public face. Maybe the Greek chorus of preschool buddies will be more anchor than albatross, giving them strength to take risks or to stick out tough times. It could be that my generation was the anomalous one, that Facebook marks a return to the time when people remained embedded in their communities for life, with connections that ran deep, peers who reined them in if they strayed too far from the norm, parents who expected them to live at home until marriage (adult children are already reclaiming their childhood rooms in droves). More likely, though, the very thing that attracts us oldsters to Facebook — the lure of auld lang syne — will be its undoing. Kids, who will inevitably want to drive a stake into the heart of former lives, may simply abandon the service (remember Friendster?) and find something new: something still unformed, yet to be invented — much like themselves.'

Gobbledygook. This is the equivalent of "I walked uphill both ways to school and it was good for me." Who says loneliness is enlightening and ennobling? I can just see a parallel columnist in the 50s ranting against all those girls in poodle skirts spending endless hours on the phone -- "maybe one day soon they'll hang up those phones and discover who they really are." Nonsense.

People long for human connection. From babies to teenagers to old people. That's what the phenomenon of the Internet (and eBay, and Skype, and Facebook) is about. Look at the global phenomenon of cell phones. Would Orenstein also suggest people should hang up their cell phones to "to clear space for introspection and transformation"? Unlikely. Ah, the days before cheap long distance phone calls -- we were all so free then!

The verbal chicanery in the article is transparent. 'Evidently they took comfort in knowing that “Dylan is drinking Peets.”' -- that particular example is employed to trivialize the platform. What if you find out via Facebook that a long lost high school friend was diagnosed with breast cancer? What about this one: "...peers who reined them in if they strayed too far from the norm, parents who expected them to live at home until marriage..." -- so Facebook is now a means for repression? I think the power of social networks to liberate individuals and expose them to the wider world dwarfs any power it grants "parents and peers" to "rein in" individuals to ensure they conform to "norms."

I love the phenomenon of people not understanding technological innovations but still waxing poetic about their deleterious effects on society and the self. Don't like Facebook? Don't log in. Clearly the hundreds of millions of people around the world using Facebook (and other similar sites) feel it improves and enriches their lives. That's the most powerful counterpoint to Orenstein's ill-considered latest effort to fill more NYT magazine pages.