To the Internet... And beyond!

I haven't posted much recently, have I? Since my laptop breathed its last in the Priory for Addicted Laptops, and I've purloined this lovely beastie from my son, who really has greater need, but then his old laptop still works. So, until he gets home for spring break, or whatever it's called here in the UK...

When I was without my laptop, which I've only had my paws on for just over two years, I'll be totally honest I felt somewhat bereft.

I missed what was happening in 'the world'... I felt a little out of touch, isolated - Especially given my rural location, and my lack of a meaningful job at the moment - More about the interview laters...

How much of our own self-worth these days is now wrapped up in our on-line lives, do you suppose?

Do you even think about it, mes bloggy chums?!

Apparently, the way we think and how we structure our time is changing as a direct result of our capacity for social networking. CLICKIE. I know mine has. Our children have the attention span of ADHD gnats, as a result. And yet they're not any less intelligent than those of us born in the Sixties', or Fifties', or whatever we're owning up to in terms of age this week!

We who only had draughty Public Libraries for refuge once a week, levering our forms into the heaviest chairs to study at, next to the, sometimes smelly, homeless man who had come in from the cold to read the papers. (Now he probably uses a Blackberry or sits in the Internet cafe... Ok, I'm being facetious).

To continue - We with our access to weighty tomes and encyclopedias - in said Libraries... We who had pens and paper, not screens and keyboards. Our kids are probably just as bright as we claim to be, in fact. Thank Goddess for that!

But our lives have changed irreparably as a result of social networking, non?

Last week I spent a lovely afternoon at the Coast with friends - We went to Crusoe's in Tynemouth - The weather was unseasonably good and I was surrounded by people I've worked with - recently and in the past - who mean a lot to me. We've all met one another at various (and vicarious!) stages in my life (and theirs...)

What we all have in common is that we all talk on Facebook. And now friends from my past have made new friends through me and each other, courtesy of (mainly ripping the tiddle out of each other!), social networking twaddle and chit-chat... Without it, they'd probably never have had the opportunity to meet one another...

One dear friend whom I met in my twenties even brought her sister who's now a dear friend too, and I'd only ever met her before virtually!

It made for an interesting afternoon, as we all got along, as conversation waxed and waned, and we each treasured some authentic real-life moments that had had their fledgling beginnings in black and white...

Friends are to treasure, no matter where we may encounter them in life.