5-14-09

Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart were ahead of their time

I recently logged into Facebook. I swear that these social networking sites are going to be the downfall of mankind.
People don’t write letters to each other anymore. There are less phone calls and more e-mails than probably should be allowed. Personal contact is at an all-time low.
A year or so, ago, my friend Steve and I were talking about friends of ours that were on Myspace and Facebook and how it is a huge waste of time, impersonal and generally stupid.
We are very cynical and “holier-than-thou” like that when we get together. Don’t judge.
I have a couple of good friends that I have lost touch with over the years and have tried everything except hiring a Bogie style private eye to track them down.
One day, a light bulb turned on. Everyone seems to be on Facebook, Maybe they are, I will see if I can find them there.
I signed my soul over to the site and never told Steve.
Quickly, I found one of my friends. “That was easy.” I thought to myself. One down, two to go.
During my endeavor to find these friends, I found other friends with which I also had lost contact.
One thing I noticed while I perused the Facebook site and “talked” with my friends is that people talk about anything and everything. The other thing that I noticed is that you can keep up with your “friends” and know what they are up to without even talking to them.
Talk about no personal contact.
I have learned more about fellow high school students, friends, and friends of those friends than I ever thought I would know.
One evening while I was having a bout of insomnia, I was thinking about all of these people that I had not talked with in over 15 years. We have all lived our lives, found careers, had families and are trying to grab a little bit of the good ol’ days through the process.
The other thing that I thought about was that it sort of reminded me of a movie I once saw.
Alfred Hitchcock wrote a little story about a man who broke his leg and spent his time looking out of his apartment’s rear window.
L. B. Jeffries, who was played by Jimmy Stewart, would watch his neighbors in the apartment complex behind his building by looking into their back windows.
The neighboring building was about the same size as his and he could see what everyone was doing in their own apartments.
Intrigued, L. B. spent his days watching the daily activities unfold. He would catch a glimpse of someone and could piece together stories of their lives through the short spurts of visual contact that he had with them. It was almost like he was watching multiple TV dramas unfold in every window.
He witnessed what he thinks is a murder, which is where the suspense comes in, but that is irrelevant right now.
You might be asking yourself, “Where is he going with this?”
While logged into Facebook, you can see the conversations that your friends are having and not even have to talk to anyone.
Now, this is sort of nice in the sence that you can “check in” on your friends and be up to speed as to how their day is going, if they had a bad day at work or what they are eating for dinner.
This site allows you to “look in” on each friend whenever you want and, as long as they feel like sharing their thoughts, you can peek into their “window,” just like Jimmy Stewart did.
There is a big voyeuristic pleasure in “checking in” on your friends. I know what they are doing and I can chime in when I feel like it and I can let them look into my “window” whenever I want.
Now yes, we are all in contact with each other. We are doing it in an impersonal fashion but staying in contact none the less.
I don’t think that the website will ever take the place of a good old fashioned phone call or a letter, but it is fun to keep up this way. Staying in touch with friends is nice anyway you slice it.
So, I guess I can live with myself for signing onto Facebook. After all, I’m still looking for my lost friends. If I happen to look in on some friends to see what they are up to, who could it hurt?
It’s not like anyone will get killed.
Bryan Pinkey can be found peeking in on his friends lives or at bpinkey@nccox.com.