All Our Exes....

 Um, I tried to find a picture of Jeff in high school but they're on my other laptop! Nuts!

 

Mostly live in Texas.  OK, mostly just mine.  And we just found out recently that one of Jeff's does, too!   Jeff was quite the heartbreaker in high school and college.  He had quite a few girl friends his first year of college.  When he left on his mission he had two girls "waiting" for him.  One went and got married, and the other wrote him the whole two years, even sending the occasional care package.  He always thought they'd end up together, they had known each other for years and had dated off and on through high school when they would both come home from college.  When he got home they got back together and dated for a few months.  When things didn't work out (darn), they said goodbye and since Facebook didn't exist at the time (well it did but not for them), didn't hear from each other again.

 

Until recently.  She found Jeff on Facebook (like 10 years later) because they had a mutual friend at school here, and as it turns out, she lives here in Texas near a friend of mine... who she has actually met.  And is Facebook friends with. Even though they met once.  Um. Small world? 

 

I always am fascinated by Facebook.  There are many reasons, one being blogging and social media, ads I've placed for companies, and what feels like an entire underground world of people who live and breathe by Facebook.  But mostly because I'm always fascinated by my newsfeed and how calculated it is.  People I would never, ever talk to or think about again turn up in my newsfeed, businesses do, sponsored posts do (those bug!), and lots of other stuff.  The people I wouldn't talk to ever again were probably friended 5 years ago when I was in school and we had a project together and never unfriended them.  Now I know they just bought a house and had their first baby.  Do I actually care? No. Would I know this without Facebook? No.  I got a birthday message from an ex that I hadn't spoken to in over 5 years.  I have friends of friends turn out to be my friend's cousin's uncle's sister, someone found me that knew me in preschool, I find out important news on Facebook (hurricanes, deaths, accidents, etc)... and the stories like that continue.  People have been proposed to on Facebook, broken up with, asked out, and so much more.  Facebook is a huge part of most of our lives right now, but what about the future?  I think more and more people are looking for an alternative, because the new generation doesn't want to be friends with their parents, but there are so many options now I am not sure what the next big thing will be.  Google+ isn't taking off like I thought.  Twitter has always been popular, and continues to stay so. MySpace fizzed out years ago... (do you even have one?) Instagram and Vine are growing in popularity, and SnapChat is pretty hot too.  I can't even keep up with the new apps and methods of communication.  It's amazing to me.  People have done their entire college thesis on Facebook. Sometimes when I feel nerdy I look up data about Facebook:

 

Teenage boys tend to have more friends than teenage girls, perhaps because they are less selective in who they accept as friends. But after the early 20s, the difference between genders rapidly dwindles.

 

In the older set, relationship status doesn’t seem to make much difference. But for young people it does. With teenagers who (mis)report themselves as “married” on average having more friends than those who don’t. And with early teenage girls who say they’re “engaged” (perhaps to be able to tag a BFF) typically having more friends than those who say they’re single, or just “in a relationship”.

 

And the result is that, yes, on average people with more friends tend to have friends with more friends. Though we also notice that people with lots of friends tend to have friends with fewer friends than themselves.

 

What? Say that again?

 

I'm just always, always impressed by social media.  The reach it has, the affect on our lives it is going to have, how it's used, who uses it, why they do and what.  It blows my mind. 

And that's all.