So long, reunions? Hello, Facebook?

I just came back from my college reunion this past weekend. On my flight home, I opened up Newsweek magazine and came across this article predicting that social networking would “kill the college reunion.” The article said that recent grads stay in touch through Facebook and will soon have no need for reunions. The article went on to predict that this will have a detrimental effect on colleges and universities, who rely on reunions as a major fund-raising tool.

Now, I’m a fan of social networking. It’s fun to watch and participate as geographic barriers gets tossed out the window and people use the Internet to connect in new and unexpected ways. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and the many other virtual communities allow people to “reach out and touch someone” like never before.

But, I thought the Newsweek predictions were a stretch and a bit silly at that. The author was attempting to find some unique angle on the overly trodden topic of social networking, but wasn’t actually basing his assertions on any real facts or measurable trends. He even put in a disclaimer: “So far, college administrations report no such decline. But they have reason to be nervous.” It all sounds so ominous. It reminded me of the many articles predicting the extinction of the book, something that has yet to pass and I feel fairly strongly will not for a long while, if ever. The problem with saying that books will vanish is that those foretelling this seem to overlook the captivating power of reading a book. Sure, one can accomplish the task of reading a book with something like the Kindle but there’s just no substitute for curling up on the sofa on a rainy day, perusing the jacket cover, hearing the crackle of the binding opening for the first time, feeling the paper between your fingers, and diving in to see what will unfold.

So, when it comes to social networking, let’s keep it real and not turn it into something that it isn’t. There’s no better way today to rapidly and widely spread the word about what’s up in your life in clever and entertaining ways and keep up with the lives of your friends or colleagues. At the same time, there’s no substitute for giving a hug to a long lost friend, stumbling across your ex-boyfriend with his spouse and kids (yikes!), or sharing war stories over drinks with your old roommates. I was looking at the photos I took this weekend and had a good laugh at this blurry picture taken at 2:30am as we stragglers from our reunion party got kicked out of our third bar of the night with a firm “last call” from the bartender. We refused to let our party come to an end and we gathered on the sidewalk to continue to relive the “good ‘ole days.” Finally, we obediently piled together as someone called out, “group picture!” And as we said goodbye, we all tossed out, “See you in 2018!”

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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