FML. THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORK ON A SMALL TOWN.

Fml. That means Fuck My Life, as everyone says these days. It's the kind of thing you say after something shitty happens. Like you got a ticket. Or your car broke down. You're standing on the shoulder with your hood up and some guy drives right by. He pretended to play with his radio, but you know the asshole saw you. Maybe you got laid off from your job unexpectedly. All of these situations would qualify to meet the standards of such a term. But there's more.

Wtf? Lol, ttyl, lylas, swak, btw, idk, smh. These days we are living in a world of abbreviations and shorthand code. We text, we Facebook, we tumble, we tweet, we flicker, we skype, and we do it all from our cell phones. Sometimes from the comfort of our own bed. DON'T LIE. You know you have. If you write for a living, you know you do.

Life is about connections. One way or another. It's always been about who ya know. But now that phrase has taken on a whole new meaning. I live outside the same small country town where I grew up, but nothing today is the way it used to be. Times change. I get that. But when I was sixteen, on Friday and Saturday nights the town was packed with cars. Lots of traffic and honking, people yelling. Every weekend. It didn't matter what was going on. If you wanted to find out who was having a party, you had to go to town. Usually there was some kind of drama unfolding somewhere. Maybe a fight. A lot of drinking. But there was always something. Now there's nothing. A Friday night in Owensville looks like a fucking ghost town.

That was all Pre-technology. Before the Internet came along and breathed life into our future. In the form of the social networking systems that would soon become our masters. And they open a series of individual doorways into the personal lives of strangers. As a society, we are fascinated by the lives of others. Have we not become inadvertent voyeurs who feast on the interactive existence of people we don't really “know?” Is the future the coolest thing that ever happened? Or the ultimate Ponzi scheme?

I swear, I could give a shit less about Facebook. It has quickly become the old Myspace. But still, I go there. It pisses me off too, because I don't want to. But I do. It seems I truly have a shit load of friends too, but I don't really know any of them. I don't remember becoming friends with half of them, but I'm glad I am. If they talk to me, I talk back. Still, it's like I just woke up one day and suddenly there's a few thousand more people in my life than I ever thought there would be. Strange how that works. But cool in every way, just strange if you think about it. If you really try and wrap your head around it.

Window after window into someone else's world. You can share in their status updates and live life through their eyes when you view their pictures. Suddenly, you know everything about someone you don't even know. Someone you may not recognize on the street. Or maybe you would. I've seen people I talk to on the Internet in my daily activities, and not a word was spoken between us. Think about it, you have to.

And there's Twitter. So much better than Facebook. Less drama, too. You follow who you want to, but that doesn't mean they follow you. A lot of people give Twitter a shot, but it's challenging to figure the shit out on your own. And with nobody following you, you have to ask yourself why your doing this. Is there anybody out there? Is anybody listening? The social networks are about building relationships, but they've changed the way we view our own “friends.” It may have even changed the way the world now views the word. Friend. Now days, it can mean anything. But when I was growing up, a friend was a guy you could count on. The kind of guy you told your secrets to. You could call him up at any hour of the night and he'd help you bury a dead body. No questions asked.

Now days, a friend is a guy named Ron, who you don't really know, but he's friends with Chad and Teresa, so now he wants to be friends with you. You hit ACCEPT. You are now friends with Ron. Maybe you and Ron will talk, maybe you won't, but the first thing you'll do is go through Ron's pictures. In a day or two, you've forgotten all about Ron, because he was six or seven friends ago. Now you're also friends with JHJ, Iron Rod O' Shea, Scott, Jedidiah, Joelle, Hilary, Chuck, and @AmishZombieDude.

Ron who? You can't even remember Ron's last name. And Ron doesn't remember you either. He's added to his own collection of friends in the last week. So when your car broke down on the side of the road, and you stood there on the shoulder with your hood up, Ron is the asshole that just drove by and didn't stop. Even though your “friends.” And this is where you say Fml.