If you’re not yet using Facebook, you may be missing the boat on humanity’s fastest growing movement toward a common language. Or you may be doing the right thing by staying away from it, far away.
The social media Goliath announced last month that it now has more than 2 billion active users. This figure floors me. Think about it, more than one quarter of the world’s overall population, give or take a few million, are active users of Facebook, according to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who created it just 13 years ago.
One week after his announcement, a Washington Post story crunched the numbers to add a broader perspective to Facebook’s role in the world. For starters, there are now more Facebook users than speakers of any single language on our planet, including the 1.3 billion Chinese residents who speak Mandarin.
“Likes, shares, comments and friend requests are becoming the closest thing to a universal tongue,” the story stated.
Since reading this analysis, I’ve straddled between feeling awestruck and saddened over mankind’s future. Will this movement (for lack of a better word) further flatten our planet by connecting us on a mutual common ground? Or is this turning us into like-minded consumers of a single product that directs us how to “speak” with each other?
It’s likely doing both simultaneously. However, I believe we are receiving the former by paying for it with the latter. And too many of us, myself included, willingly do so every day. I view this recent announcement by Facebook as a sort of reconnaissance photo of our culture at this time in history.
It’s a snapshot of who we are, what we value, and at what price.
As I’m writing this column, I received my weekly Facebook page update, breaking down the number of hits that each of my pages received this past week. Yes, I manage more than one Facebook page, including my personal page and pages for each of my books and my radio show.
I started my first Facebook page in 2009 at the behest of one of my newspaper editors. I was a reluctant user. Now I’m a junkie. I’m not alone. Many of my online readers are also addicted to Facebook and its daily, or hourly, cyber-shots of dopamine, giving us a sense of reward with each like, share or comment.
But what does this mean for us as a species, or as individuals? Should this primal, neurological reward come at the price of our personal information, our shopping habits, our relationship problems, our innermost secrets? Are we selling our soul to the devil one post at a time?
Technically, Facebook is free. Spiritually, we can’t afford it.
Witness protection program?
“Jerry, are you in witness protection? I haven’t seen any of your columns in a few days,” wrote Shirley R., a longtime reader.
Several other readers also contacted me this past week to ask what happened to my columns. Although I’d love to weave an entertaining tale about being in a witness protection program or being on assignment in another state, the truth is that I’ve been on vacation.
A staycation actually, rarely leaving my home each day while reading several books, getting off the online grid, and pondering life’s universal nuances. My next few columns may offer a peek at my findings. Thanks for asking if I’m still alive and writing.
George Carlin’s legacy
My recent column on the late comedian George Carlin attracted reader feedback from across the country, proving that I’m not the only fan who was influenced by Carlin’s humorous and edgy observations.
The most touching correspondence I received came from Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, who sent me an email soon after my column ran online.
“Jerry, I just read your piece about ‘Last Words.’ It warmed my heart. Thanks for still holding his voice in your head. Keep up that thinking!” she wrote.
I replied to her, asking what she thought about that 2009 book and her father’s last words, completed by Carlin’s old friend Tony Hendra.
“I learned so much about him from that book actually!” Kelly Carlin replied. “When I read the galleys and saw that there was no chapter about me, I was at first gutted. But Tony explained to me that he wanted me to tell my story. Luckily, I got a chance to do that. My book came out in 2015.”
Her book, “A Carlin Home Companion: Growing up with George,” is now on my summertime reading list. But I can’t stop thinking about a certain passage in her father’s book, describing his family’s troubled life after he finally hit it big in the comedy world.
“So there we were: a successful young couple with plenty of money, a nice house in Beverly Hills. With a mountain of grass. And a lake of booze. And a beautiful daughter who couldn’t watch her daddy do what he did for a living.”
“I always said Kelly has an old soul. Perhaps even then, in the wisdom of her four years on earth, she sensed that I was on a treadmill to nowhere. Without a clue how to get off.”
Steel City Superstars
Before I started my vacation, my column on the Steel City Superstars left readers with the Gary-based group of talented girls leaving for a national competition in Ohio. Several readers have since asked me how the girls fared at the event.
As expected by the group’s leader, Tami Reynolds, the girls returned home with a carload of new trophies for various competitions, such as baton, jump rope and double Dutch.
The awards included four national titles, two second-place trophies, three third-place awards, one fourth-place and one fifth place. I honestly don’t know where they will find the space to display them inside the office at Lighthouse Charter School, which is already jammed with trophies from previous events.
Congratulations to the girls who are truly superstars.
Twitter@jdavich
