I'm increasingly fascinated by the social media I swim in every day, and what it might tell us about ourselves, our neighbors and our communities.
While I traffic heavily in news, I'm always somewhat taken aback by what people react to - what they connect with - when they go online.
Everyone complains that social media - meant to bring people together - actually is driving us farther apart, at least when it comes to face-to-face interaction. We are now content to go through life with smart phones in our hands and ear buds firmly in place, an announcement to the world: Don't bother me.
And yet we yearn for connection, for the personal, for the things that makes us more like each other than most of us are willing to admit.
I use Facebook and Twitter to push the news and content we mine every day at the Daily Times and DelcoTimes.com.
But the richest interactions I get continue to be when I reveal something a little more personal.
Maybe that's why we love reality shows. We're looking for the human element, even while we seem lost in a wave of technology.
An item I posted on Facebook only cemented my belief.
I noted that Wednesday (Oct. 9) would have been John Lennon's 73rd birthday. My wife reminded me that it was also something else, and she wanted to know if I knew what it was? I know it's not her birthday, and it's not our anniversary, at least not THAT one. It is, however, the day I proposed to her 31 years ago.
I can admit that had completely skipped my mind. Most things do these days. She was not amused that I did not remember such a momentous occasion, that being my popping the question, not the birthday of the famous Beatle.
Then she told me something else I also had managed to forget over the past three decades.
We got married the following June, the 18th to be exact.
And do you know who was born on June 18? That would be Paul McCartney.
I assure you it wasn't planned that way.
But still it's kind of a weird happenstance.
In other words, it's the kind of thing that people find interesting.
It got more reaction on Facebook than almost anything I've posted in awhile.
And it also got one of the best retorts I've experienced in awhile, courtesy of our Sunday columnist Christine Flowers.
What did she write: She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Perfect.
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