Social networking vs. friendship

I had an AOL profile when I was in 8th grade. I got on facebook in college within a couple months of it being created. I started a blog and joined twitter. I think it’s safe to say that I enjoy the internet and social networking. But now there’s Google+.

As you’ll see in that link, Google+ is another company’s attempt to help people gather into groups and communicate on the internet. The idea is that it will be more personal than facebook and twitter, gathering your close friends into circles. I think it’s a cute concept. However, when I actually think about it, I don’t see it as useful at all. It hit me when I read in that article that friends can “share a piece of content, like a YouTube clip, and everyone in the Hangout can watch it together while talking about it.” Uh…

Here’s the problem. Things like email and facebook are great because we don’t have to be online at the same time as our friends to share or communicate. The beauty of email (and handwritten letters, for that matter) is the convenience of timing. If I wanted to “hang out” with my friends, I would not plan a time that we would all go online to do so. Maybe some people spend a lot of time on the computer for work or entertainment, but the odds that my friends are going to be on Google+ at the exact same time as each other are low. And this is the difference that I see between social networks and friendships.

I do not go on facebook to connect with my best friends. I already know what they’re up to because I talk to them or see them often enough. The 652 friends I have on facebook are spread out around the world, ranging from grade school classmates to people I met traveling in Asia. Facebook does not help me have friends; it’s a place for keeping track of people who you don’t totally want to lose touch with. It’s just a giant Rolodex with fun information and photos!

I also do not use twitter or my blog for friendship. I mostly follow people on twitter if they come up with interesting things to say about international education, the environment, or China. I try to post things on twitter and my blog that are interesting to people who are also passionate about these areas. I don’t expect everyone who reads my blog to be my friend.

I think Google+ is trying to make an online place more suited for friend groups. This is strange to me for two reasons. First, most people have an immediate group of friends who live near them and they see very often. I have a couple of groups of friends here in Pittsburgh who fit that description. But other than the fact that we all live in Pittsburgh, there is no other way that I can “group” them. And why would I waste time doing that online? If I want to see someone who lives a mile away, I pick up the phone and call them, or sometimes I even run into them on the street. When I move away from Pittsburgh, I will stay in close touch with some people, while others will just remain on my “don’t want to lose touch with you forever” list on facebook.

Second, most of my friends do not know many of my other friends. Every time I move, I have to explain to new groups of people why I have so many friends in St. Louis, Chicago, DC, Copenhagen, Beijing, and Pittsburgh. The network grows larger, but it also grows thinner. While I can connect a friend in China to a friend in Kansas based on some mutual interest, this is rare and usually temporary. This makes my groups of friends very fluid and random, not something I would need a website to keep track for me.

Maybe my opinions on this will change. I’ve only gotten to see tiny pieces of what Google+ looks like and how it functions. But overall, I see the effort to group your “friends” into “networks” as just a way to take time away from actually being with people. What makes me the most depressed is the idea that we aren’t walking around our neighborhoods chatting with people that we actually see in real life. Instead, Google+ wants to make it easier for us to start up conversations with people we see online:

“If your neighbor is sitting there, you know that they’ll likely be interested in striking up a conversation. In fact, it would be rude for you to walk by and not say anything. With that in mind, Google+ Hangout attempts to solve the social problem of video chat by making it easy for you to let others know that you’re interested in chatting.”

The comparison of a physical neighborhood to an online community is just creepy. I wish websites would stop trying to convince us of the twisted idea that we need to be online constantly in order to have friends. I think it’s exactly the opposite.

Pittsburgh welcomes the world?

I actually wrote this a couple weeks ago, and then was waiting for Jon to send me photos he took at the G20, which he still hasn’t done.  Oh well!  Here we go:

I’ve been living in Pittsburgh for a few weeks now, and I was just getting used to the slower, more peaceful pace of life here.  That is, until, DUN DUN DUN…the G20.  All of a sudden, I am thrown back into the world I knew in DC: barricades, motorcades, police sirens and huge white tents.  On campus Thursday, there were conversations about Michelle Obama sightings and Russian and Japanese leaders.  That was all pretty familiar to me, until Jon and I decided to follow some of the riot police…

It was convenient to follow them, really.  We heard from friends that the action was going down not downtown, not near campus, but in our neighborhood, Bloomfield.  So following riot police was just part of walking back to our apartment.  The first sign of damage we saw was a broken window at a bank.  Then we came upon the Boston Market restaurant, where I walk by every day.  Every window in the place had been smashed with bricks and rocks.  Farther down the street, another bank, a McDonald’s and a BMW dealer had windows broken, too.

The people who did this belong to the anarchist group that seem to show up at every protest, everywhere, no matter the issue.  Their posters showed that they don’t believe in government or banks.  Ok, so that explains why they smashed bank windows.  But fast food joints?  In a working-class, residential neighborhood?  No one involved in the G20 goes to Bloomfield.  So how does breaking windows of restaurants in Bloomfield send a message to members of the G20?  That destruction happened on Thursday; on Friday, they broke windows of local businesses, including the breakfast joint where Obama ate during his campaign.  So this was not a protest against the corporate world; it was just an excuse to go break stuff.

There are two sides to this dance; there are the violent protesters, and then there are the violent police.  The problem is when non-violent protesters get punished by the violent police.  The police take any threat as serious.  And that’s what I witnessed on Thursday in Bloomfield.  The people who threw the rocks had been arrested and hauled away.  But people were still gathered around, because, like I said, this is a quiet residential area.  And if weird stuff is goin’ down, people want to see it.  But any gathering of people is threatening to a bunch of police in riot gear who just fought brick-wielding anarchists.

The first disturbing thing we saw was a cyclist get shoved against a car by police.  The biker was just riding through the street, just like the cars.  But s/he must have said something to the police, because all of a sudden s/he was pushed hard against a car and handcuffed.  A friend of the cyclist was there and able to take the bike as the police hauled away her friend.  Then the police started marching toward the crowd (Jon and I stayed as close as we could to the TV news truck; I feel comfortable near media) and telling us to disperse.  The crowd was on the sidewalks of both sides of the street, and a guy ran from one side of the street to the other.  The police must have taken that as a threat, because before he got to the other side, he was tackled to the ground and handcuffed.  Another man, a few minutes later, was handcuffed for yelling at the police to let the guy go.

Looking at everything I witnessed, I just find it so unnecessary.  There was no need for anarchist groups to destroy local businesses, just like there was no need for police to get violent with non-violent hecklers.  At least today there was an example of real protest; thousands of people marched peacefully from the university to downtown, carrying real messages about war and the economy.  One of the speakers at the march smartly said, “We’re confronting G-20 policies, not police.”

Fireworks, candles and red eggs in Athena

I’m in Europe, and it’s weird.  I know I only spent 10 weeks in Asia, and in the grand scheme of things that isn’t very much.  But something about being here is strange to me now.  I’m in Greece, where I have never been before, but it’s somehow still familiar.  Things are easy now, like walking into a cafe and ordering a sandwich, or brushing my teeth with tap water, or finding places by using addresses.  And as much as I love being in Europe, it’s showing me that I really didn’t have enough time in the East.

Temple of Zeus, the most photogenic and my favorite of the sites in Athens

But Greece was the perfect place to start our European leg.  It’s close to the Middle East and shares a lot of culture with Turkey (though I cannot say that to a Greek) so the food and music here is similar to what we had in the UAE.  There are cats and dogs lounging in the sun and begging for our food at outdoor restaurants.  But it’s still very European, with tiny winding streets with cafes running into each other and churches filled with candlelight and little old ladies.  We arrived in Athens after a strange stop in Cyprus, where our plane had to refuel.  So if you look at the “where are we” map that Jon created, you will see a stop in Cyprus, but we didn’t actually get off the plane; we just sat there wanting to get off!

Hadrians Arch at the end of a street in Plaka, the hood near the Acropolis

I was struck immediately by the beauty of Athens (in Greek they call it Athena, which I think it much prettier!)  Every picture you take looks like a postcard.  How could it not?  You are surrounded by hills, palm trees, orange blossoms, churches, and ancient ruins.  From all I had read about Athens, I expected it to be a dirty, cramped city with little charm — but it’s the exact opposite.  Why don’t more people talk about the beauty of Athens???  Anyway, we saw all the major sites and ate at many picturesque cafes, stuffing our faces with feta and tomatoes.  (Jon ate the olives; I still think they taste like cough medicine.)  But by far the coolest part of our time in Athens was Greek Orthodox Easter.

The Roman Agora (like a market) as seen from some of the little cafes on the street above

Now, in my Catholic-centered Christian mind, I never considered that other forms of Christianity would celebrate holidays on different days.  So I thought Easter was on April 12, and that was that.  Nope!  Turns out we decided to go to Greece during the most important weekend of the year.  That gave us some challenges, like many things were closed on Sunday and Monday.  Plus the transportation was all booked up with all the Greeks traveling, so we weren’t able to spend the weekend on an island as we had originally hoped.  But the benefits outweighed that: Most sites were free that weekend in honor of the holiday, and we got to witness the beautiful celebrations of Greek Easter.

The Good Friday procession to church; a bit blurry, but you can see the flowered throne near the door of the church

It all starts on Friday night with a candlelit procession marking Jesus’s death.  Every church has its own procession, but the one by us went like this: In the front was a marching band playing very somber tunes; behind them were a bunch of men carrying a throne covered in flowers; behind them was a priest with a huge beard (think Dumbledore) blessing the crowds with a large cross.  And behind all that was the crowd of churchgoers, candles in hand.  The streets are blocked off and they march toward the church where they have a service.

inside of our Easter Sunday church; the murals covered the entire thing, in much brighter colors than my camera could capture

But Saturday night is where the real fun comes in.  Everyone goes to church around 11pm, and when that’s over, people set off fireworks and hang out in the streets.  At this point we were staying in a different neighborhood in Athens, a purely residential and awesomely grungy one, so we went the opposite way of the crowds to find the church they had come from.  In doing that, we found the biggest and most beautiful church that I have seen, maybe ever.  It was surrounded by hundreds of people outside, and inside it was filled with smoke from all the candles.  We went inside to see hundreds more people lining up to kiss the Bible that the priest was holding.  The church had an enormous dome and was completely covered in paintings of saints and the Holy Family.  The priests were chanting and the crowd was whispering, and it was amazing to witness it all.

Jon with our red Easter eggs in front of our church

The next morning, Easter Sunday, we went outside for a walk.  An old lady ran out of her house and handed us two red eggs.  She didn’t speak any English, but showed us that we were supposed to bang them together and then eat them.  Easy enough.  But later on we read that whoever’s egg doesn’t crack will have good luck for the year.  That was me!  Our Easter Sunday was spent on a train from Athens to Thessaloniki, but on our ride we could see families across Greece having picnics in the street and in their yards. We met a really nice Greek guy our age who told us a lot more about Greek Easter and what an important family holiday it is.  And a note to all who want to come to Greece but don’t want to fight crowds and sweat your brains out: Come in April!  It’s so lovely and most of the tourists are Greek.

Jon and I with the Acropolis in the background