In Defense of Social Media
We often bitch and moan about social media and how it’s taken over the minds and bodies of today’s young people.
But let’s agree on two things:
1) We, the boomers, overuse our phones and other electronics constantly.
2) They can do some pretty wonderful things for us as we age.
Since the orange-one-whom-I-will-not-name came back into the White House, turning its Rose Garden into a Florida parking lot, I’ve written a Substack once or twice a week (uncreatively called JerryLanson’s Substack should you want to read it). Some pieces have appeared on Writing About Our Generation.
I put these out on Facebook as well and, as a result, have reconnected with some regularity with Haverford College classmates who weren’t even among my fairly large network of friends 55 years ago when I went to college there.
I loved my years at Haverford from ’67 to ‘71, the excitement of the late ‘60s; the long conversations late into the night with smart and sometimes zany people; the poker games and occasional (on my part) protests; and, occasionally, the classes I took and books I read. Underlying the culture of the place was its Quaker origins, which I came to respect and admire.
The school ‘s culture was genuinely devoted to building consensus in discussing really difficult issues such as responding to the invasion of Cambodia. It also had an academic honor code taken so seriously by faculty and students alike that we could schedule the same final exam a friend or roommate already had taken several days later, and never think of attempting to pry information from that person.
I liked a lot of my classmates I knew only casually (it’s a small college and we knew most of our classmates). But beyond four or five lifelong friends I’ve kept in touch with regularly to this day, I’ve long ago lost touch with most.
That’s where Facebook comes in. Because of it, and my decision to start writing a Substack, I’ve gotten in touch with and met two who I didn’t really know that well even in school in my hometown of Falmouth on Cape Cod in the last month.
The first, Bill, lives in Arizona. I discovered he has family here and, more interesting to me, that he grew up as a young kid on an Arizona Indian reservation. His family is Quaker and, as I recall our conversation, his father taught there.
The second, Marc, lives in the Philadelphia area and meets periodically with six or seven of our classmates. He spent his career In psychology and psychiatry (he has both PhD and MD degrees, which blows me away). He has good friends in Orleans on the Cape, who play in a band that happened to be performing in Falmouth on Monday night.
I learned a fair amount about both Bill’s and Marc’s families, shared an hour with each, and greatly enjoyed reconnecting.
My point: Without social media, I likely would never have met these guys again except perhaps at a stray college reunion. And like many of you, I also have reconnected on Facebook with a surprising number of other people. I count my best friend (and sort of girl fiend) at Carle Place High School in 10th grade and a friend at Kinhaven Music Camp in Vermont, which I attended in the summers after 8th to 10th grade, among that group.
I could go on: Some kids use social media to look up some awfully interesting, intelligent and useful information, even as other kids use it to bully or spread lies, pornography or other unhealthy and often damaging information.
Parents need to help them—and themselves—to use it well. But condemning and censoring are the worst approach.