I come from a very large family. Most of my family lives in the Midwestern United States, and I live in California. The distance can make it difficult to keep in touch with all my relatives, because I cannot easily drop by for lunch, or attend birthday parties and other family events. I never expected to find so many family members on facebook, but there they are!
I resisted joining facebook for a long time. I’m not very involved in “social networking”, and most of what I heard about facebook involved description of time waster games, (such as the popular Farmville). I had no interest in facebook. One day, my sister, who cannot be described as a “social butterfly”, sent me an email. She said she was joining facebook, and wanted me to join it too. She intended to use facebook as a simple way to let me see her photos of our new nephew, and of the family that attended his birthday party. Of course, I joined. She kept her promise, and posted several photos for me to see.
A few months later, one of our brothers, (the father of the nephew), joined facebook. He is not “a computer person”, so this was surprising. He and I have had a few conversations using the chat function on facebook. Next, an uncle joined facebook. He started sending me invitations to play Farmville, (and several other facebook games). My uncle is a man of few words, and this has become our way of keeping in touch with each other. I’m more interested in sending little gifts through these games to my uncle than in the games themselves, (though the games are really fun to play).
Later, three of my cousins joined facebook. A few sent me friend requests, which I accepted. I found a few more cousins when I looked at the side of the screen and noticed that facebook suggested that I might know them. More and more cousins joined, and we became facebook friends. It was nice to go on facebook and be able to read little statuses about how their days were going, and to see photos of new babies.
Then my aunt joined facebook. She and I are close, but had lost touch when I moved to California. We comment on each other’s statuses, and send each other facebook email. One day, I saw a photo of a new baby on facebook, that many of my relatives were commenting about. I did not recognize the name of the baby’s mother, but wondered if I was somehow related to the baby. I asked my aunt, who told me that I was related to the baby’s mother. This was a relative I had never met, and did not know existed! My wonderful aunt offered to “hook me up” with other relatives who were on facebook, and this week has been full of friend requests from cousins I had lost touch with, and cousins that I was unaware I had. I found my family on facebook.
Image by benstein on Flickr