Facebook nostalgia

As mentioned before, I’m not much of a sentimentalist. But as of late, I seem to have been bitten by the sentimental bug of lost memories. As human technology progresses, it seems that the most popular technology we have are tools of memory logging. Built-in cameras and video recorders, flickr and youtube, they fuel each other. And then personal profile sites (who knew such a mundane sounding invention would explode in popularity?) like Facebook seem to be making the impossible possible. What do I mean? How many of you have found long lost childhood friends on this site? I don’t mean those of you that grew up and work in the same town and never had to experience physically lost friendship, I mean those of us who were constantly moving when we were kids because of our parents’s jobs or whatever reason. At one point, I was moving every year. I still remember faces, but I stopped bothering to remember names. What was the point? In a way, I feel like what fuels all these applications and inventions is nostalgia and the yearning to recapture what it represents. But all the while I fear that because of this convenience later generations will lose understanding to the notion of nostalgia.

Being who I am, I tossed all my elementary Valentine cards long ago. I also eventually tossed old letters as well (letters that my friends wrote me as I moved, yeah pre-email era!), I know it sounds heartless but I was and am a practical person. I was tired of hoarding letters and moving a letter box with me every time. Besides, some people got tired of writing or who knows… maybe in my constant moving, they were confused as to which was my latest address. So as a consequence, my memories are far more lost than the average. I that realized today, after having been contacted by someone from elementary school on facebook. The person who contacted me wasn’t in my grade, so it didn’t mean as much as it could mean to me. For her, it was probably just adding someone to the list of “people I know” rather than “people I’m actually friends with.” The concept is apparently moot on Facebook. Anyway, it was still amazing to have found one person from elementary school, but I’d very much rather find my old friends from BCA. It’d be much more meaningful for me. Because for me, it somehow means I can recapture my childhood. Or, rather… I have a link to my past.

I woke up today thinking how handy those Valentine’s cards would’ve been for all those names I couldn’t remember. How was I supposed to know they were going to invent Facebook one day?!