Parlez-vous le....social media?!?

I grew up without a computer. I was not even thinking about it. A computer?!?!? That was for all the spectacled geeks of my prep high school who were wasting their lives playing "Lemmings" (remember those?!? These little guys who were shaking from left to right and yelling "Oh no!!" just before exploding. So much fun. Right.) and whose idea of having a blast was to write programs in Pascal that would allow them to write swear words on a glittering screen.
Yeah. Not for me.

My parents didn't have a lot of money while growing up, but that was not even a financial matter. Most of my friends didn't have any PC. Let alone Macs. God forbid. We were too busy falling in love with rock stars and singing their songs in our bedroom, secretly hoping for them to kidnap us at night during our sleep. Or noticing us in the middle of a concert crowd. We were just fiiiiiiiiiiine. Which is pretty incredible to believe at this day and time, but I swear you guys - it's the truth. The whole and naked truth.

I got my first 'machine' at home in 1999.I was 23 and a few months, and desperately needed one. No, I hadn't turned into a game junkie overnight. And I was not addicted to on-line porn either. I was a graduate student, writing her master's thesis.
And I was not going to do it by hand.

At first I couldn't even type. It got easier. And easier. Using Word, sure, but also surfing the Internet.
I had discovered the virtual world and its innumerable connections to the real one.
It - literally - changed my life.

On March 3rd, 2001 I applied to a whole bunch of doctoral programs in the United States. In French. I wanted a change. Needed one. A big, huge, deep, transforming one.
And it came.
Quite to my surprise.
Through the Internet.

Now typing is a second nature. No need to look at the keyboard, I just wish I had one to use in bed to type the surrealistic dreams that affect my sleep so that I could send them as movie scenarii (yep, scenarii and not scenarios in proper Italian, which is the only language you should know the syntax of, and don't ask me why) to all the uninspired Hollywood producers out there. Going to the theater would be a quite the thrilling experience, let me tell you.

Emailing? sure. Add to that updating statuses on FB, loading up pictures, chatting, twittering, Yelping, blogging, advertising, posting*, again and again. Adding @, # and https every other word.
Without. One. Hour. Of. Respite.

How did I get there?
Seriously?
Could I possibly be one of these women - 49% of them!!!!!! - who would rather give up sex than their online surfing which, according to them, doesn't require any 'special warm-up, treat and/or effort'?!? Hmmmm.....

I am not the only culprit. I am sure that all of my friends are in the other 51% (right?!?!?!?) but still, sometimes I cannot help but wonder what happened to us. For God sake, I didn't even a cell phone in France!! My addiction coincides for me with my arrival to the US. It is therefore hard for me to make a distinction between the two. Being away from home led me to find home on the screen, and everything followed. Effet boule de neige. Snowball effect. It all made sense. And at the university where I was surrounded by these colorful Apple monitors (hell-uuh cuties!!) it seemed....normal.
And at the time I was still social-media free.

I am sure that things are exactly the same in France. In fact, I know they are (yes, we do have computers, and they work, too. We even have high speed and wifi, which some of my students couldn't believe even last year). My baby brother (of 23) in on FB, and actively so. A few days after the launching of Yelp France I received a compliment on my account from a brand new 'Yelper' based out of Metz (my hometown) who was telling me that he didn't know how well Yelp would do since there were already so many similar reviewing sites......
Really?!?
I am much further behind than I thought.
I felt down right stupid for asking him what he thought about it. He knew already all about it, and much more.
Not having been back home in almost 4 years I feel a bit out of touch with the everyday reality. But I am learning step by step to get back into the virtual one.
One megabit at the time.

I have to admit that I love social media. They helped me find love (thanks Yahoo Personals!), friends, jobs and a ton of other opportunities. They also steal some of my freedom and impose the irritant ramblings of people I would rather strangle than read. Submit them to a thousand Chinese tortures??!? yeah......nice...
But these are the rules of the game. I cannot change them.
And I play the game. The best I possibly can. For better or the worse.


* The only thing I have been refusing with an animation I don't always really understand myself is Skype. I don't want it. Gives me the chills, in a bad way. I am doing way too many things while I am on the phone, and I am not ready for anyone to see them. Particularly not my mom. She would immediately notice my pimples, my roots, and my weight gain. Talk about a nightmare. Some things should really remain archaic.