Day 8 NaBloPoMo at yeah write guest blogger: Travis Peoples

We used to make friends in real life. We lost a lot of them, but we kept the good ones. Decisions were easy back then. If you couldn’t share your fire truck when you weren’t using it, we couldn’t be friends. The rules of sandbox etiquette were clearly defined: don’t smell, be cool. We made sense of the world using these simple lessons, but over time, external forces eroded the castles we built together.

The proliferation of social networks promised to end sandbox vacancy and its accompanying loneliness. In the years since we invited these platforms into our lives, however, this promise remains unrealized. Despite unfettered access to social networks, personal sandboxes with enormous reach, we are plagued by the feeling of disconnection.

The primary corruptible force of social networks is the way that they are designed. The design is related to the initial purposes of these early social platforms, most notably Facebook. “Facebook” was the colloquial term used for the pre-orientation yearbooks handed out to incoming freshmen on certain, historically elite, east coast college campuses. These books were required reading for upperclass boys intent on catching a preview of the female talent approaching campus. Facebook took this late summer fervor and delivered it, through a perfectly executed rollout, to every college campus in the country and beyond. The spirit of frat party camaraderie that quite literally spawned Facebook is terrific foreshadowing for what social media has largely become. Social networks are designed for people to talk about themselves. And talking about yourself is anti-social behavior. Sandbox rule number three.

Bashing Facebook is en vogue. That’s hardly the point here. Mark Zuckerberg proved that the model, designing a digital landscape where people connect with others via self-promotion, could flourish. In the years since Facebook began dismantling sandbox etiquette, many services have similarly catapulted themselves to important middleman status by following that lead and being at the right place at the right time. Facebook was merely the catalyst for other prospectors in the second digital gold rush, characterized by a sense of interconnectedness in a hall of mirrors.

Today, we find ourselves battling loneliness from well-lit castles in the sky. We are hyper-connected through media that do not care about the quality of our interactions. This weak tie revolution puts our strong ties at risk as our sandbox fills with people who do not know how to play with each other anymore. We want someone important to be holding the other can and we foolishly believe that Facebook and the other middlemen are the string. We are expecting more from technology and less from each other.

*****

It’s NaBloPoMo at yeah write perk package day! We are giving away one prize to four random winners meeting eligibility requirements for a total of four prizes from our list of donated goodies. One additional random winner meeting eligibility requirements will be rewarded with our new yeah write book bundle: three of the 2013 Best American series. Look for the winners’ announcements in the post opening the weekend’s moonshine grid at 6 p.m. U.S. eastern time. 

Today’s basket of goodies to be split among the winners, one prize each:

[unordered_list style=”star”]

• Holiday decorations handmade in the Philippines by Rosanna, no. 28 on the NaBlo challenge grid
• A handmade sock puppet from Laura, no. 11 on the NaBlo challenge grid
• A box of homemade fudge from Alisa of Ice Scream Mama
• A $60 gift card to Jacq’s custom doll shop 

[/unordered_list]

The yeah write book bundle for one random winner:

[unordered_list style=”star”]

• The 2013 Best American Short Stories
• The 2013 Best American Essays
• The 2013 Best American Non-Required Reading

[/unordered_list]

See you on the moonshine grid at 6 p.m. One week down, three more to go!

[hr]