Skip to main content
Donate

*Group Hug*

By Ophelia Chong
August 14, 2009
Support Provided By
facebook_2

I am going to admit my love for Facebook, because you know how I feel about Twitter. When I first started using it, it was a lazy posting of an event once a week or so. In the last 3 months I have ramped up to multiple postings a day.

Posted yesterday:
Ophelia Chong: Okay I am going to admit it. Facebook has gotten me closer to people who I wouldn't have been close to because of distance, time, age...if a website could have emotions, FB would be the closest to a group hug. MySpace is a poke in the eye (those visuals, ugh).

Some of the Comments:

Izabela Berengut: so true, so true...

Adam Larson: I had this exact conversation with a friend last night, who I only saw because of facebook. It's nuts!!! Right there with you.

Ernie Olson: Electronic summer camp...

Casey Harris: Myspace terrifies me. What started as this prototype networking system, quickly evolved into the complete embodiment of Tween nightmarishness. I don't want to listen to your emo bands or see your glittery animated backgrounds!

What I love about Facebook is the ease in following my cousin Ada's latest news, we barely seen each other throughout the years, she's in Puerto Rico, and I am here. I feel closer to her because we communicate at least once a week on Facebook.

Online Social Networks warp time and distance; time becomes inconsequential, distance is non-existent and participation is addictive. We move through the time lines of our friends and relatives, we are present while not being present. We are relegated to one of the five senses, Sight - we send silent messages to each other, the photo of the vacation, the dinner we just ate, the view from our window, and attached to each image a short haiku; "I sat here, and ate this".

I know more about my friends and family now than I would have with that phone call or snail mail. We are intrinsically tied to each other by an invisible thread, sewn into a worldwide quilt, each patch a story, each stitch a moment in time.

Image: Ophelia Chong / Call Me

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.
By Marisa Kendall, CalMatters