Good Morning.
Mark Zuckerberg and his crew at Facebook figured out awhile back that people have a need to share their news and views, not only with people they know well but also with those they've never met and never will. The Facebook folks could have called these people contacts or even partners, but nope, they thought, we need to call them friends, because friends swap stories
about every activity on earth and pass around pictures as if they were sitting in someone's living room. This sort of chatting has always been the province of women, of course, but now the back fence literally circles the globe. Men talk about hiking somewhere or re-roofing the house. You don't get nearly the information that you get from women but what else is new. Women drag their husbands to marriage counselors because they don't communicate their feelings, and the successful therapist will eventually get the guy to say stuff like I appreciate your wonderful sense of humor, honey or I am concerned (not mad as hell) that you totaled the car. The point is, women like being tight with people, so they get together with friends over lunch or on Facebook. It's okay.
Then there are the quizzes that offer the opportunity to learn something, fluff one's feathers, or feel rather foolish. In the past few days I have made a note of some of the quizzes and offer them here:
1. How far would you make it on Jeopardy? This was not about possible material on the TV show but about whether I had
the strength of character to withstand the stress of the game and manage the signaling device. I do not.
2. What do people love about you. I skipped right over this one. I know what people love about me and it's summed up in
seven words: Seafood Lasagna, Twice-baked Potatoes, and French Silk Pie.
3. What is the best exercise for your body type? I glanced at the drawings of human beings, fat and thin, female and very
obviously male, and moved on to someone's pictures of their grandchildren.
4. Can we guess your age by the words you use? I bypassed this one also because I was certain I'd be subjected to the word
I would like stricken from the dictionary and American vernacular immediately; the word is awesome.
5. and 6. What decade should you have lived in and in what state? I actually did these and should have been at the height of
myself during the 1940s in New York. Sounds great except for the matter of World War II.
7. Can you name these American cities? This one involved identifying a dot on a state, outlined but unnamed, with a choice
of two possible answers, like San Francisco and Sarasota. If the choices were San Francisco and Los Angeles, okay, but
with the cities 3000 miles apart, I was forced, once again, to conclude that we are dumbed down big time.
8. Can you name these historical foods? I have no idea what this one was about but not particularly interested in what
some pioneer had for dinner. I was much more interested in:
9. How good is your knowledge of French? I did this one because I was really good in French but not so much in history.
We gravitate toward anything that makes us feel valuable and run from anything that makes us look like idiots.
Facebook figured this out.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
Comments