These are the Days of Our Lives

I was reading the Washington Post article about social networking sites and was struck by the comment Nicholas A. Christakis made about Facebook serving as a way to watch soap operas of people we know (or sort of know). I've definitely used Facebook in this way on multiple occasions. Just recently, I was browsing the new photos that my Facebook friends had posted and came across an album entitled "Marriage" by a guy I went to high school with. Out of curiosity, I opened the album and was surprised to find pictures of him and a girl, appearing to have just been married! Now, this guy and I were by no means close friends in high school, nor are we now, but there's just something so juicy about knowing info like this about people you knew and no longer see. Immediately after finding out that this guy got married, I texted one of my good friends from high school about it (who happens to be in Ohio at Oberlin College), wanting to know if he already knew or not. We then proceeded to have an in-depth conversation about how we just can't fathom being married at this point in our lives and how unexpected it was that that particular guy was the first (well, second) from our class to get married, etc.



This phenomenon may have something to do with the high school community that we both were a part of. There was almost no room for secrets among classmates when we were in high school. If something interesting happened to you, it was almost guaranteed that the whole school would be gossiping about it within the next few days. From my reaction to finding out this tidbit of information about someone well after high school ended, I can see that somehow that tendency to gossip has travelled with me and probably my classmates as well. Facebook serves as a way to make it easier for us to fulfill that need to gossip. With the click of a mouse, we have access to whatever is going on in the lives of our former classmates who are spread out across the country. Personally, I make use of the website to keep up with what's going on with people I may not get the chance to catch up with regularly. As for the other people I'm Facebook friends with, sometimes their lives do transform into something of a soap opera that I can turn on or off at will.