I know I’ve written some other things about Facebook on this blog.But, this phenomenon just fascinates me.Our whole techno-culture fascinates me.Like how two teenage girls can sit in the back of my minivan with my nine-year-old daughter between them and send text messages back and forth to each other.My daughter could read the messages…. So why not just talk to each other?A teen friend of ours explained why not, and frankly, while she’s bright and logical and delivered her explanation with a straight face, I still think it’s silly.
About a year ago, a friend of mine encouraged me to sign up on Facebook.
“I reunited with so many old high school friends,” she said.“It is so much fun seeing all these people after all this time,” she said.“It is such a blast!” she said.
I ignored her.Because, you see, I understood there must’ve been some reason all those people from way back then weren’t still in my life now.I must’ve cut the line for some reason.
Then my mom died.My mom was the school librarian where I went to elementary school for a while.I knew there were people in my past who knew and liked my mother in that capacity, so I wondered if Facebook might get me in touch with some of those people, just to pass on the news that she had died.So, I joined.
I had a near miss last night. I thought I had accidentally deleted Dolly, my (fluff)Friend from Facebook. I’m not hugely into the whole Facebook thing, but I was very fond of Dolly. I had even written about her once .
My Facebook page was gunked up with all sorts of history boxes that for some reason you aren’t allowed to collapse anymore, and I was on a deleting-spree to get rid of those boxes. Just clicking and deleting and clicking and deleting, to clean up my little space there. Then I went to pet and feed Dolly, as is my routine, and she was gone. I clicked around and was able to locate her in some parallel Facebook reality where the notice at the top told me that this was Dolly and asked if I would like to adopt a (fluff)Friend of my very own? I clicked and hunted to try to break through whatever barrier was keeping me from Dolly, who I could look at, but could not feed or pet, since somehow, somewhere, something went very wrong and she and I got separated by some horrible Facebook accident. This is where it gets frightening. I cried real tears. I wrote a eulogy on my personal blog and cried actual, physical tears for a pretend Caribou. And the loss of the munny she’d won from my gambling, the (fluff)Foods that were in her pantry, and the (fluff)Habitats and Decorations I had in storage. All gone forever.
As it turns out, it takes more than a mishap with the mouse to kill off your (fluff)Friends, thankfully. I mourned Dolly for a half an hour then mustered the strength to go shopping for a new (fluff)Friend to adopt. When I clicked to sign up with the application, Dolly reappeared, mine again. She didn’t seem to have missed me at all. There was no joyful reunion…on her part anyway. She just stood there on her hill with the mini (fluff)Mouseu on her head, grinning in that silly Dolly way of hers.
I know that hindsight can be 20/20, but this is just tragic event that was fully unavoidable.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — A Missouri mom was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in the death of a teen who killed herself over a failed Internet romance that turned out to be a hoax.
A federal indictment accuses Lori Drew, 49, of O’Fallon, Missouri, of using the social networking Web site MySpace.com to pose as a 16-year-old boy and feign romantic interest in the girl.
The girl, Megan Meier, committed suicide after her online love interest spurned her, according to prosecutors, telling her the world would be a better place without her.
Drew faces up to 20 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.
The indictment, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accuses Drew and others of registering on MySpace as “Josh Evans” and using the account to lure Meier into an an online romance.
Authorities have previously said that Drew set up the account to find out what Meier, who lived in her neighborhood, was saying about her daughter.
Prosecutors allege that Drew and the others violated MySpace’s terms of service by using false information to create the account so they could “harass, abuse or harm” Meier, according to the indictment.
The two corresponded for about four weeks before “Josh” broke off the relationship, authorities said. Within an hour, Meier hanged herself in her room and died the next day.
I get wanting to protect your child, especially in the MySpace and FaceBook age. I applaud setting up accounts to keep a watchful eye over internet social networking. But just how delusional do you have to be pull a stunt like that?
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Posted
October 21, 2008 at
11:58 am by
Rita 
Comments (13)
Posted
May 15, 2008 at
9:37 pm by
