I was chatting to my son’s friend Brigitte on the way to the deb the other night. She is completing her VCE in a town that is over 3 hours away from here. She moved when she was in year 8. They (son and friend) caught up online. They weren’t close friends when she lived here. She is a year older than he. They reconnected on My Space and are very close friends now. Brig stays here for weekends and he has been to her new place for weekends as well. Her extended family lives here still.
I chatting with Brig about staying in contact with people when she finishes school. I remembered when I finished HSC (as it was known, back in the day) that I lost touch with mobs of people that I had seen every day at school for around 12 years. It was weird. They weren’t close friends, but I liked many of the kids and never really saw most of them again. I told her to appreciate all those acquaintance-type people.
Living in a country town, many people move away when they finish school. When I caught up with lots of them at our 20 year school reunion, they were mostly the same as they were at school. It was fun.
Anyway Brig and I were wondering if kids today will stay in touch better with MSN and the Internet. She is going to be an experiment for me and let me know if it happens.
I think Facebook and other social networking tools act as a great way for the young generation to keep in touch because it is so easy to do.
You don’t need to set aside a night to catch up. All you need to do is update your Facebook status and everyone will know exactly what your latest news is.
p.s. thanks for visiting my site earlier.
I know I’ve lost touch with just about everyone I knew from school, and from all my different jobs. Mostly it hasn’t mattered, but there were some people I really treasured.
It will be interesting to see whether or not things will be different for kids nowadays.
Heath, yes facebook and myspace are great too, to stay in touch. Have recently been reconnecting with some using this as well as staying in more frequent contact with family.
cerebalmum, wow, if you add past jobs to the equation, that’s a lot of people I’ve lost touch with!
It will be interesting to see!
Kids are way more in touch with friends than we ever were and I also wonder whether that will make a difference to whether or not they remain in contact when they get older. I organised a school reunion a couple of years ago and we managed to get around 150 people along. With some it was like going back in time to those days of short pants and long hair, with others though I would not have recognised them at all, not only in looks but in demeanour. I guess that things unfold as they will and those we like or with whom we have a reason to stay in touch will remain whilst others fall by the wayside.
Joh you make some very good points. As part of the younger generation you’r talking about I’d agree that Facebook, Myspace, Livejournal, MSN and of course mobiles make it significantly easier to keep in touch. as Heath said, there’s no obligation or setting aside time with the first three, so it’s great. as always, it’s definitely a two-way thing -both people hav to want to make the effort to check [and update] the services. good luck to you and Brig with the experiment!
on another note, it was great to see you on Sunday evn though it was brief. I’m glad you’l hav the chance to take advantage of your hols.
Loz, I agree, it will be interesting to see how many fall by the wayside. I think the ease with which you can communicate will reduce losing touch though.
Kat, It was great to see you too! You can add to Brig and my experiment:-)