It’s not really correct to write that for many years I had resisted the temptation to get onto Facebook, because I wasn’t really very strongly tempted. Based on things I had read elsewhere online, it seemed that many people who spent a lot of time on facebook wound up oversharing, and as a general rule I tend feel that most details of my private life are none of anyone else’s damn business. Also, I freely admit that I can be (more than) a little bit OCD at times, and consequently, even without oversharing personal information, just being on Facebook at all could potentially turn into an enormolus time suck. Thus, even though my kids more than once mentioned to me how easy it was to communicate among themselves to share just simple information, such as safe arrival at a travel destination, I never felt that getting onto Facebook would be worth my time.
My attitude finally changed earlier this year, primarily due to an external event. One of the members of my Homeowners’ Association, a retired lady only a few months older than I am, fell down the stairs in her home. She had never married and had no children, and apparently no other relatives she was particularly close to who would have been alarmed at not hearing from her. She survived the fall, but was unable to reach a phone, or summon help in any other way. After a few days, the postal carrier (bless his heart) noticed that mail was accumulating in her mailbox, and contacted some of her close neighbors. This led to her being found and taken, still alive, to a local hospital, where she wound up in Intensive Care; unfortunately she died a day or two later. While I am aware of services like Life Alert, I am also cheap, and for the time being, at least, signing up for Facebook seemed like an acceptable alternative. Every morning I send out a “still alive” message to a group of relatives who live close enough to come look for a body if they don’t receive such a notification.
If I live long enough to get more decrepit than I already am, I may decide at some point that some sort of personal safety monitor may be worth the cost, but for the time being my present system seems to be working. There have also been a couple of events recently (including a road construction project undertaken by the HOA) that have prompted me to post some photos to my Facebook account; I wouldn’t have signed up for Facebook just to be able to do this, but it has been helpful. If I find that this is turning into a time suck, I may be forced to look for a “Facebook Anonymous” group somewhere, but for the time being I seem to be able to control it.