Facebook vs Blog vs Email

May I see from a show of comments, how many of you are on Facebook? Are you hooked?

My curiosity got the better of me, and a few days after a younger friend accidentally invited me to join, I signed up, just to see what the hype was all about! But among those who included networks in their profile, I've only found from my same university cohort, two I know, and two others from my workplace back home. A few others I looked up, I knew them slightly better.

Pardon my ignorance, and I'm really new to Facebook, but amidst all the "poke"-ing and "superpoke"-ing, and kind exchange of "gifts", and some writing on "fun walls" here and there, does any actual talking go on, the way conversations do get carried out over MSN, Yahoo, and Skype? For the couple of people I contacted on Facebook, I ended up using the "Message" function to email them, and keep our conversations to ourselves.

I've quoted Shakespeare on brevity before, and my background and job back home have more than taught me that getting to the point, and being succinct, are what increase readability on any platform. Is Facebook all about this -- keeping in touch, yet keeping it to brief moments, albeit as many brief moments of contact as you like to make, in a day? And the more, the merrier?

No doubt, I think it's really nice when someone is thinking of me in such a way. And another friend -- she's younger also, has invited me to join, too, not knowing I'd signed up using a different email address from my old one that she knew me by.

But perhaps because I'm old school, and old-er than most Facebook users, I still prefer long emails, like you can see I have a penchant for long blog-posts, too! In fact, I have many half-written emails and blog-posts, that I was interrupted midway -- some I went back to, others I had to cut short or abandon entirely. Simply because I always have so much to write, but so little time!

I was sad when an old friend told me she stopped emailing me, when she would rather get the latest updates from my blog. I became guilty of that too, when she subsequently started her own blog!

I wonder if Facebook is one day going to replace blogs. I hope not, for besides writing long emails and long blog-posts, I always enjoy receiving long emails in my mailbox, or reading your long blog-posts! So, don't stop yakking, or writing, OK?

I know though, that my long-windedness doesn't always go down well with every one. My own husband, whom I just praised one blog-post ago, had me arguing with him just minutes ago, over a technicality. My providing one sentence too much of information, in a simple email I sent out, that was a request for information.

I guess, just like when I don't always get replies to my long emails, it all boils down to a difference in styles. For example, Vern's (usually) is a matter-of-fact one (read:direct or unemotional; straightforward; down-to-earth -- as defined by Dictionary.com). Whereas I like to be as personal as I can, and offer whatever information I already have on my end. Of course, doing so isn't always to my own advantage, as I've discovered all through life. But I never seem to grow up, or out of doing that. It's just me, like it or not.

So while I see that Facebook can help me put faces to long-lost friends (provided they are signed up), I hope it won't do away with the good old-fashioned way of communicating (talk, talk, talk; talk some more!), even in this fast-paced world! Already, it takes so much for us -- because not a single person isn't caught up with his or her own life -- to try and keep in touch on a personal basis.

Good thing I only know that one peer who blogs, and neither she nor the few others who still email me are on Facebook (yet), so I don't have much of an excuse not to email them, too!