Listen up world. I will not let our generation be known as the “Facebook Generation.”
Being known for sitting behind your computer day and night “lurking” on the pages of others is not how I want us to be remembered in the history books.
Have we completely lost all hope and faith in the spoken word?
Have we come to the point where we stutter if we’re not trying to put our point across via text or chat?
Being labeled as the “Facebook Generation” by the other generations is embarrassing, but I cannot fully blame them. We do everything on Facebook.
We talk to each other; we tell people what we’re doing, where we’re going, where we’ve been.
It’s our party planner, our monthly phone call to mom, our address book and our photo album.
We even farm on Facebook.
No more. Let’s farm in the real world.
Let’s actually go out and do all the things we would digitally do on Facebook out in society, face-to- face.
Let’s resurrect the spoken conversation that has sustained and educated men and women ever since the first cave woman told the first cave man not to eat the red berries.
Let’s not just resurrect it but develop and master our spoken language.
Let us take description and the art of storytelling to new and more stimulating levels.
At the very least, lets diversify vocabulary in speech before we forget how to properly say the words.
Articulate your thoughts in an interesting and competent way.
Inspire others to listen instead of rotting their minds with the same old topics and clichés.
Take note and understand the subtleness of body language and pitch change. Experience all of the wonders of personal sarcasm.
We must put behind us our ways of lethargy and listlessness.
Our world is much bigger than a list of things on a blue and white web page.
We will be sorely regretting our lives when the fad of Facebook is over and we realize just how much we missed.
Remember MySpace?
But we cannot completely turn our backs on Facebook. Not yet.
With the world so wired in and connected, we’d simply be unable to get our message out.
Facebook and the Internet have done great things and can, at times, connect us with people and places we otherwise may never have known.
However, we must practice temperance first. Otherwise, people wouldn’t know where to go because, yes, we have become that desperate.
So unplug yourself for a majority of the day instead of just some of it.
Don’t just communicate, speak. Meet new people face-to-face. Discover the wonders of the world with your own eyes, in person, instead of on a computer screen.
We want our generation to be remembered for doing something great and for making real changes to the world, not for typing the most words per minute