March seems an invigorating time to set goals such as travel, clear out shelves, try a new recipe, have a party. I don’t need to do those things, though, if instead I choose look at Facebook. There I can enjoy activities vicariously, since many of my friends are traveling, testing recipes, and attending special events. One is going to Bulgaria, another to Iceland, and one just came back from Sri Lanka. Recently I read that some people spend as much as four hours a day on social media. Sorry, but I check my Facebook page perhaps once a month if that often. I don’t think any of my young friends spend that kind of time on Facebook, but they are so talented and quick, they post their photos and videos on the run. When I do check Facebook, I enjoy seeing their adventures. They tell me they aren’t “adventures” but daily living. “Life Happens,” one informed me.
We don’t think of our daily activities as adventures, but they are. Since this is true, I will mention one. Recently on a snowy Saturday afternoon, my husband and I attended the Marketplace Atrium to see the works of six local artists. Outside as the wind blew whirlwinds of snow, inside we enjoyed bright works of art. Shelly Bellinger, Rebecca Justice -Schaab, Pat Delagrange, Nina Bennet, Sandy Kessler, and Toni McAlhaney held an art exhibit and mingled with guests, who definitely enjoyed the venue. Coffee, wine, and little delicacies were served, and to the side, in a large open space, a white 5-foot-tall fiberglass bison waited to be painted.
This year, Indiana celebrates its Bicentennial, and the Indiana Association of United Ways is sponsoring a Public Art Project – a “bicen’tennial”— in partnership with the state’s Bicentennial Commission. Artists in each county will decorate a fiberglass bison with the goal to have at least one (if not a herd) of bison on display in each of the state’s 92 counties. (The bison is representative of the state’s history and heritage.) This project has elicited many “Likes” on Facebook.
Now Facebook has rolled out new ways to relate to posts. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, these new buttons require analysis. Columnist Joanna Stern wrote that she experimented with the buttons, and “spent the first day with the tool ‘loving’ nearly everything” in her newsfeed. Later, she began wondering about whether or when to “hit the LOVE button. “ Should one equally “love your best friend’s baby girl or McDonald’s new pancake-fried-chicken McGriddle?” Stern determined that “Life is not a series of thumbs-up moments.“ She writes that people shouldn’t take the buttons too seriously because “at the end of the day, they’re cartoon faces masquerading as human emotions.”
Emeritus psychology professor Rosen, (California State U. and author of “iDisorder,” a book on tech obsession), agrees. He writes that “If clicking a SAD button makes us feel like we have expressed a deep emotion in a split-second, we’ve got problems.” But it is fun, I suppose, to consider whether to LIKE or LOVE something. Since our daily lives and activities are adventures, which we can either Love, Hate, Wow, Sad, Angry, or Like, let me hit the button that says I LOVE books and my writer friends, HATE foul-mouthed insults, am SAD how little history is being taught in the schools, am ANGRY about the lack of respect people have for public property, say WOW regarding art that makes our lives more meaningful, and LIKE newspapers, live theatre, jazz standards, and a bowl of my split-pea soup, especially on cold blustery days!
We don’t think of our daily activities as adventures, but they are. Since this is true, I will mention one. Recently on a snowy Saturday afternoon, my husband and I attended the Marketplace Atrium to see the works of six local artists. Outside as the wind blew whirlwinds of snow, inside we enjoyed bright works of art. Shelly Bellinger, Rebecca Justice -Schaab, Pat Delagrange, Nina Bennet, Sandy Kessler, and Toni McAlhaney held an art exhibit and mingled with guests, who definitely enjoyed the venue. Coffee, wine, and little delicacies were served, and to the side, in a large open space, a white 5-foot-tall fiberglass bison waited to be painted.
This year, Indiana celebrates its Bicentennial, and the Indiana Association of United Ways is sponsoring a Public Art Project – a “bicen’tennial”— in partnership with the state’s Bicentennial Commission. Artists in each county will decorate a fiberglass bison with the goal to have at least one (if not a herd) of bison on display in each of the state’s 92 counties. (The bison is representative of the state’s history and heritage.) This project has elicited many “Likes” on Facebook.
Now Facebook has rolled out new ways to relate to posts. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, these new buttons require analysis. Columnist Joanna Stern wrote that she experimented with the buttons, and “spent the first day with the tool ‘loving’ nearly everything” in her newsfeed. Later, she began wondering about whether or when to “hit the LOVE button. “ Should one equally “love your best friend’s baby girl or McDonald’s new pancake-fried-chicken McGriddle?” Stern determined that “Life is not a series of thumbs-up moments.“ She writes that people shouldn’t take the buttons too seriously because “at the end of the day, they’re cartoon faces masquerading as human emotions.”
Emeritus psychology professor Rosen, (California State U. and author of “iDisorder,” a book on tech obsession), agrees. He writes that “If clicking a SAD button makes us feel like we have expressed a deep emotion in a split-second, we’ve got problems.” But it is fun, I suppose, to consider whether to LIKE or LOVE something. Since our daily lives and activities are adventures, which we can either Love, Hate, Wow, Sad, Angry, or Like, let me hit the button that says I LOVE books and my writer friends, HATE foul-mouthed insults, am SAD how little history is being taught in the schools, am ANGRY about the lack of respect people have for public property, say WOW regarding art that makes our lives more meaningful, and LIKE newspapers, live theatre, jazz standards, and a bowl of my split-pea soup, especially on cold blustery days!
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