The Evolution of the Social Butterfly

By Michelle Miles

Things just are like they used to be. Back in the day, to socialize with your friends, you had to “know” people. You had to get invited to all the best parties. You had to show up and be that person that everyone wanted to hang with.

And nowadays? You just log into Facebook or Twitter or MySpace to socialize with your friends and family. I confess, I’m a Facebook junkie. I love it. I check it daily. I have the iPhone app and have several of my favorite people on Speed Face so I can check their status at only a touch. I love commenting on status updates. I’m not so much for the games, but I do love seeing what my friends and family are up to on a daily basis.

It’s funny to think about how things were fifteen years ago. Man and I watched the movie True Lies the other night. It was made in 1994. There were things in the movie we noticed that wouldn’t be permitted in today’s world. Like the guy smoking inside the hotel lobby. And when Arnie boots up the guy’s computer at the beginning of the movie it clearly says “Windows 3.1”. We laughed.

Isn’t it amazing how far we’ve come? Why, there was no internet back in 1994. At least, not the internet like we know it today. We certainly didn’t pay bills online and the only wait to check our checking balance was to either go to the bank or an ATM. Back then, I was logging onto a local BBS (bulletin board system) that was strictly for chatting. I thought I was totally cool when I had a 14400 band modem. I was more popular via the online chat site than I was in real life. And then I discovered MajorMUD, a text-based role-playing game much like Dungeons & Dragons (I was Poison Buttercup in that life).

And now? We have online games galore. We “socialize” by “friending” people online. I have over 1200 friends on Facebook and I’ve been asked if I really know that many people. Um, no. But in my defense, my “friends” are mostly writers. I love networking with other writers because, after all, this is a lonely business and who wants to go through it alone? I sure don’t.

It’s hard to believe how much things have changed in such a short amount of time. I wonder where we’ll be in another ten or fifteen years? Will we have vid-phones? Webcams as standard on every computer? How will we socialize with our friends then?

I’m sure the social butterfly will evolve yet again!

Michelle Miles is an avid movie watcher, a coffee drinker, a shoe collector, and can be found on Facebook daily. She runs her own fan page as well as the Red Shoe Divas page. Come socialize with her! Or just visit her website.