As much as my generation seems to support Facebook, I believe that underneath all that tagging and friending, there’s a deep-seated resentment that we’ve had to grow up in a world where it’s the norm to share your relationship status with strangers.

I’ve blogged before about the issues I think Facebook creates for teenage girls, and I’ve heard a lot more of my peers agreeing with me about the perils and annoyances of Facebook. My Facebook blog last year received more comments than any other piece I’ve posted, and it seems that many others share my attitude about Facebook: I wish that Facebook didn’t exist, yet I still have a Facebook for several reasons.

I hope to debunk the myth that all teenagers are drinking the facebook Kool-Aid and pose the question: will my generation ultimately defect from Facebook? Believe it or not, grownups, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a kid my age say they “love Facebook,” a two word pairing adults seem to imagine us uttering all the time. Clearly, despite its popularity, Facebook still strikes a lot of people in my generation as having negative impacts.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I keep my Facebook. In a nutshell, I have a Facebook because I’ve always been afraid that deactivating it would cause my friendships with certain people to suffer. I have a lot of friends who I don’t go to school with, including friends from other countries who I’ve met through international programs I’ve attended. I also use Facebook to communicate with classmates about schoolwork and organize logistics for clubs.

Finally, I use Facebook because no one in my generation checks their email! Teenagers reading this: WTF? Like, maybe I’m being retro and old in saying this but email is a great way to communicate—and if any of you used it, I wouldn’t have to be so dependent on Facebook!

A few weeks ago, I set out to interview my friend, and Rachel Simmons’s former teen blogger, Lilly about her recent disappearance from Facebook. That’s right…Lilly is a Facebook defector. I went into my conversation with Lilly especially curious about three topics: friends, schoolwork, and email.

Lilly told me she abandoned Facebook this September, but that she’s wanted to do it for a long time. She’d resisted because she’d always thought that after she got to college, deactivating her Facebook would make it difficult to keep in touch her high school friends, a concern I definitely identified with.

I asked her about the strain on her friendships with these people. Lilly told me that she still communicates with many of them through text messaging and email (woohoo! What what!), but that it’s certainly true that she’s lost touch with some people by deactivating her Facebook. “It’s been very indicative of who my true friends are,” Lilly told me, “My birthday was on the 31st and it was definitely interesting to see who remembered without facebook there to remind them.” Lilly said she didn’t want to be part of such vapid measurements of relationships and that quitting facebook has helped her do this.

Lilly also talked about the pressure to cultivate a perfect persona through one’s Facebook profile or as she puts it, pressure to constantly be your own PR person. “The whole language of Facebook stalking really irks me. That’s so sad that that’s what our interactions have become. They’re so diluted. No one says on their profile…‘I’m really messy and I sorta suck sometimes.’”

Lilly said she still finds out about school events, clubs, and homework assignments, although she said she is sometimes the last to find out about parties. “Sometimes it means, you know, showing up at a party and not realizing it’s a costume party until you get there,” Lilly said, laughing. But, these are small issues Lilly is more than willing to deal with.

“It was just taking up so much time. I didn’t realize until I got rid of it how instinctual checking Facebook was for me.”

When I asked Lilly if she ever thought she’d return to Facebook, she told me that, although she had been planning on going back over winter break, she really doesn’t want to. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back to having it,” Lilly said, “And when I tell people I don’t have a Facebook, they sort of get this look on their faces…like they get it.”

After my conversation with Lilly I felt both more tempted to ditch Facebook and more frightened to do so. Facebook is such an integral part of all of our lives, yet many of us seem to be noticing its flaws more and more. I’m still not sure if I’m big enough to take the plunge…are you?

Originally posted on Rachel Simmon’s website. Check out Fiona’s own blog, Barbara’s Angels.

sometimes, alone time is a good thing

When I was fourteen, my dad told me that the most important thing I would ever learn was how to be alone. Granted, he said this as he took away my cell phone, Facebook and cut off all ties I had to the outside world. I was crushed to say the least. At the time, high-school-freshman-me felt like my dad was completely overreacting to the fact that I had made out with a boy, especially since he was my boyfriend. That meant something, right? And my friends had all kissed boys, so I didn’t understand why it wasn’t okay that I had, too.

However, the time spent on my virtual desert island, as sucky as it was, really allowed me time to think. During this period I spent most waking moments alone in my room — it was that or talk to my repressive parents, so the choice was obvious. Stuck in my own head, I was able to think about the boundaries I needed to set for myself. I’d already hit first base, and rounding home was clearly the point of the game. Only here’s the thing: at fourteen, the idea of doing anything more than kissing terrified me.

Even though I was perfectly content with simply kissing, my boyfriend at the time was pushing me to do more. After all, we really did care about each other and both of us had heard stories of other fun “extracurriculars” our older friends partook in. Even though at the time I was uncomfortable with handjobs, blowjobs and *whisper* sex, I was considering trying them. But the thing was, I was only thinking about doing them because I wanted to be liked. On my personal lonely island, I came to the realization that if I gave into any of those things at that moment in time, I wouldn’t like myself.

That’s how I learned that if your boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t respect your personal boundaries, forget them. You do you.

In the meantime, I’ve compiled a list of fun things to do solo, until you find the right person and it feels like the right time.

- write haikus professing your undying love to yourself
- beat your personal best running time
- catch up on your zzz’s (no need for beauty sleep, we’re all beautiful to begin with)
- practice kissing on your hand (no need to get out of practice)
- learn to cook your favorite meal

The thing is, after I spent all that time without having to please other people, I no longer felt the need to compromise on things I knew would bother me just to be with a certain boy or even a certain group of people. My advice for everyone out there is to learn to be your own best friend. It’s the one person you have to live with for the rest of your life. So BEFORE you end up in an intimate situation with anyone, think about what you’re comfortable with. That way, when you are with somebody you respect and you feel ready, the whole experience will be that much better.

is YOUR profile safe?

A couple of weeks ago, an article on Mookychick highlighted an issue of hacked photos on adult websites. It’s a practice that’s going on for a little while, but it’s starting to trend, and it’s misogynist and tantamount to abuse.

Essentially, a crop of websites are hacking into photos uploaded to social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Tumblr – websites that most of us use, and many of us upload photos to.

Pictures of women and teenage girls are being hacked into and published entirely without the girls’ knowledge or consent – on adult websites. It appears to be a legal practice, as it largely keeps within the privacy terms and conditions of social network sites.

For teenage girls and women, it’s a nasty catch 22. No one likes the thought of their images being used for titillation without consent. But how are we meant to know about it, unless we frequent the sites in question?

So these sites are getting away scot-free. Even worse, if you look at their promotional imagery and advertising, they are actively boasting about the fact that their photos are stolen.

Obviously, we have a choice in what images we choose to upload to social network sites. We also have a personal responsibility to ourselves to check privacy policies. However, it’s no guarantee that our images won’t be used if they are always fully-clothed. The sites in question promote fully-clothed hacked photos as well as ones where the unwitting models are in a state of undress.

There have been cases of women and girls taking a stand against this unnerving trend, most prominently the case of Lara Jade who successfully sued for damages against an adult website found to be using her photo without her permission. But it was a gruelling process, and success stories like this are few and far between.

At the moment, the law does not appear to be on our side. All we can do is take care with our choice of photos to upload, and check the privacy policies of social network sites.

When I’ve talked about this with others, I’ve been surprised by the number of people who have shrugged sagely and essentially said, “It happens. Deal with it.” Personally, I’m uncomfortable with that. I get that it’s technically possible to hack photos for use elsewhere. I get, also, that it appears to be legal. What I’m uncomfortable with is the “lie down and take it” ethos. If people don’t show their awareness and condemnation of this trend, how is it ever going to get into the public eye? Why would the adult websites in question ever choose to stop this practice?

A woman – or girl – has the right to upload any photo she pleases. Realistically, one can accept that an individual here or there might steal a photo for their personal titillation. Not nice, but it happens. But that’s a far cry from organised outfits doing it on a large scale, for commercial gain, and boasting about it.

That’s a worrying trend indeed.

Kenneth Tong

In outrage, my mum showed me an article in UK newspaper The Evening Standard and told me to read it. More or less, after finishing the article, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I had just read. What was it about, you ask? Well, if you have been alive on Twitter over the past week, the online universe has blown up over one certain former Big Brother contestant, Kenneth Tong.

Young, impressionable girls already have enough pressure on them as it is when it comes to their bodies and being deemed ‘beautiful’ and ‘attractive’ in the eyes of society, but when Kenneth Tong, with his idea of introducing a ‘Size-Zero Pill,’ fires attack after attack, claiming that girls who aren’t a size-zero are “disgusting,” and, “to be skinny is to be perfect and to be fat is unacceptable,” he just takes the whole body issue onto another level. Oh, what a lovely man this Kenneth Tong is, hey?

Thankfully, a lot of people haven’t stood for this Pro-Anorexia campaign. Celebs like Rihanna and Lily Allen hopped on board the hate-train, and even though I am not one to follow the lives of celebrities, I was glad to hear that two well-known figure-heads and role models for young girls are voicing their opinion on such a universal topic, something that affects so many that one in four people diagnosed with anorexia die. Of course, Kenneth Tong didn’t know that, did he? About anorexia being a mental illness, and all.

Getting past my disgust for this point of view, what is laughable, and pathetic, about the whole situation is that after having an onslaught of hate, begging for The Evening Standard not to publish the interview that was conducted with him, Kenneth came out claiming via Twitter that it was all a hoax after having a conversation with his friend, saying it was possible to become a trending topic worldwide on the social networking site, and voila, the Size-Zero Pill was born.

Whether or not Kenneth’s ‘message’ was in fact a harmless little joke – which obviously, it wasn’t, and it definitely wasn’t harmless – isn’t the case. Everyone has a view of themselves, through lack of confidence, that we can’t live up to society’s expectations, where beauty isn’t in the eye of the beholder but in what you wear, how you looks, what size you are, and how close you are to looking perfect like those models in magazines.The age in your life when you are the least confident and try to find the niche where you fit in, to be accepted, is when you are a teenager, and teenage girls have seen this message Kenneth has broadcasted to the world, probably wondering if there is something wrong with their own body.

What Kenneth Tong has done is revitalise that fear teenagers have of themselves, in particular girls, that whatever we look like, whatever size we are, we just can’t be accepted by society until we change ourselves to fit into the ideals of what is apparently beautiful.

So thanks for that Kenneth, you’ve done a bang-up job instilling, yet again, an ‘Am I pretty enough?’ mind-set into the world.

Facebook: the root of all evil?

The media would like you to believe that every time you log on to Facebook or – god forbid – the evil black hole of narcissism that is Twitter, another nail is inserted into the coffin of your general ability to function as a capable, well-rounded human being. Every time you update your status, every uploaded picture taken of yourself on your macbook, every “100 Things You Didn’t Know About Me!” note you write, a modicum of self-awareness and empathy seeps from your pores. Essentially, the social networking sites that virtually our entire generation frequently uses are turning us into self-obsessed, unfeeling robots who will contribute nothing of worth to society.

Now, I don’t know that this is entirely true. But if I see one more teaser for the 11:00 news that goes something like, “Is the bullying epidemic caused by Facebook?” or, even better, “IS YOUR TEEN SEXTING? (GO CONFISCATE YOUR PROSTITUTE OFFSPRING’S PHONE AND LOCK THEM IN THE CELLAR IMMEDIATELY)” without the teen perspective represented, I’m going to down a bottle of Nyquil.

It’s true. Technology has presented us with some problems. Cyberbullying is probably #1 on the list of reasons why we could have done without certain technological advances – as evidenced by the experiences of Phoebe Prince and Megan Meier – which has already been given some media attention.

Also, the promotion of narcissism isn’t completely far-fetched. But it’s more complicated than the “everybody must be interested in what I’m doing and saying and thinking” mindset. This culture is actually an offset of the girl culture feminists have been examining for a few decades now. Think Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters or The Body Project.

When you’re on Facebook, you are putting on a performance. Between your profile, your photo albums, your status updates, even what you write on your friends’ walls (because you know other people can see those posts) you are cultivating an image of yourself that you have complete control over, and it does encourage us to think about ourselves. Excessively. But it’s also a source of competition and comparison.

By looking at other people’s profiles and pictures and apparent wealth of friendships, we automatically compare ourselves to others. We think “She looks like a model in her profile picture. Why don’t I look like that? I have to spend hours getting the perfect profile picture to compete with her.” We think, “So many people write on her wall. I need to write on a ton of peoples’ walls so that they write on mine and it looks like I have a ton of friends.” It’s less about over-confident narcissism and more fueled by the opposite – complete insecurity and need to over-compensate.

But this also isn’t all of us. There are some people who have facebook accounts, but really do use them to have real conversations with people  or to actually put up photos with the intent of sharing part of their lives with others. And, conversely, there are also people who are legitimately full of themselves (aren’t there always?). I know people who go on Facebook like it’s their job (they literally go on after school and stay on until late at night), dominate everybody’s newsfeed by posting on everybody’s walls whether they have anything to say or not (“REMEMBER. I’M HERE. I’M IMPORTANT.”) and one has even been known to update her status with high thoughts such as “I just filled my nearly empty tank completely full with gas!” If this sounds like you, then yes, you are probably a little bit narcissist.

However, while I am genuinely concerned about my generation, and I think technology is intrinsically tied into this concern, as a feminist I believe technology has the capacity to not only support feminist values but further the feminist cause. I believe that empathy should be a quality that is high up on the priority lists of our emotional capacities. Technology has the ability to connect us on a global scale more than ever, which ideally should not only open our minds and hearts to other cultures, but also give us some perspective about life in other parts of the world.

technology and networking

Yes, it’s easy to think that everything is just hunky dory when you live in a first-world country. But technology allows no more excuses for those same people to be ignorant about the plights of others. Don’t really know what’s going on the Democratic Republic of Congo? Haven’t heard about the systemic rape as a weapon of war that’s been going on there as you go about your daily life? Well, the New York Times online has reported about it in the past, and more information is just a google search away. There’s just no excuse anymore to be uninformed about the world around us. And with this knowledge generally comes the desire to help. Also, it’s hard to counter feminism with the claim that we’re all equal and everybody’s lives are great when faced with such information.

Technology also makes it more natural than ever for teens – especially teen girls – to learn the ins and outs of networking, something Gloria Steinem identified as a roadblock to workplace equity in the 70’s. We’re able to create groups and events on Facebook to more effectively support causes we believe in and get more people involved. I’m confident that this form of grassroots organizing that has become a part of our daily lives can only be positive.

So ultimately should we fear technology as the ultimate downfall of our society? No. Technology clearly has the capacity for good, it’s just our jobs as feminists (and a society at all) to harness that good and try to eliminate the bad.

Bullying has been an issue that has been affecting our country for a long time, but has recently recaptured our nation. Lets face it, some people are mean. It seems, however, that children and teenagers are becoming meaner with new technologies available to them. Through texting, twitter, facebook etc, there are more ways to attack others than ever before.

Formspring is the worst of them all. Because of a slew of bizarre questions I received on mine, I decided to deactivate it. Thankfully, I have confidence in myself, and therefore am not phased by bullies who chose to lurk on my page. But I know that there are a lot of people out there who do not have the same self assurance that I do, and are greatly affected when they read hurtful comments.

When I went to deactivate it, it asked me why I wanted to. I chose the button, that said “I don’t want people to find me on here anymore.” That wasn’t entirely true, but none of the other options satisfied my reasoning. Formspring did, however, give me the option to submit additional comments or feedback. I decided to write that I believed that formspring creates an environment where bullying can thrive through its inherent anonymity.

While thinking about this more, a lot of things occurred to me, especially as a feminist. A lot of girls I know have Formsprings and I often look at them to see what types of questions they get. Sometimes I am absolutely horrified. There are questions interrogating them on what drugs they’ve done, their sex lives, their sexuality, their weight – and those are just a few examples.

The feminist in me is beside myself with the amounts of slut shaming that I see daily on other peoples’ formsprings. There are girls who have questions plastered on their pages calling them sluts, whores, accusing them of hooking up with this guy, and that guy. Then there are the comments that attack girls’ looks, calling them fat and ugly. There are the ones that inform girls about how they have no friends and that everyone secretly hates them. These are the questions that lead to the eating disorders, depression, and even suicide.

My mind is boggled that such a thing can exist. People see that they can say things to others anonymously and it seems like an exhilarating option. There is comfort for the bully because they won’t be discovered and labeled as such.They can make all kinds of accusations and not have to deal with the consequences. But the truth is, the person that receives the hateful comments deals with the same amount of pain, if not more, than they would if the bullying happened to their face. That consequence alone should be enough to stop Formspring from becoming even more popular than it is and should make teenagers stop and think about what something they say to someone can do. America is clearly making an effort to curb the amount of bullying in our schools and over the internet, but why are more teenagers not speaking out against formspring, and trying to get rid of it?

Also check out Formspring and Cyber Bullying

formspring

My first interaction with Formspring (for those who don’t know: Formspring is a site where people can comment anonymously about eachother) occurred just this past year when a girl a year younger than me from a nearby school became relatively famous amongst local high schoolers because of her formspring. Other “anonymous” commenters (mostly girls from her school) began leaving notes implying (in a tone that could be called just about anything besides subtle) that they thought she was a slut. She announced via formspring that she would not be returning to that school next year.

I watched this incident with pretty fervent, yet detached, disgust. Almost every Formspring profile I’ve viewed was used to express hateful comments, some verging on actual threats. It seems that when one adds teens plus anonymity plus the internet, the result is cruelty. Therefore, it’s hard for me to understand how other teens could willingly put themselves out there. What is there to gain? But on the other hand, there’s clearly a bigger problem than teens not being able to look at what should be an innocent situation of social interaction – the site frames itself as a way to learn more about your friends – and see that they’re going to be verbally abused.

Phoebe Prince: committed suicide after being cyberbullied

What is it about the internet that can bring out the absolute worse in us? It’s an argument that’s been rehashed over and over again in the debate about cyberbullying. Without actually having to face a person, it’s so much easier to be cruel. And with the ease and almost constant use of the internet, cyberbullying can easily blend into cyberstalking and create an environment that drives kids who have been targeted to feel depressed or even suicidal (or actually commit suicide in the cases of Megan Meier and Phoebe Prince). But Formspring is different. It seems that instead of bullies targeting specific kids they don’t like, it’s everybody voicing nasty insults about everybody else. Where cyberbullying is an instance of a bully targeting their prey through a more pervasive environment, Formspring seems to be the great equalizer of nastiness: everybody laying into everybody else.

So, are teens getting meaner, or have we always been bitches and now just have a way of expressing it? I think one of the main aspects of this that is often overlooked is that bullying like this has always existed. It’s just public now. Whereas before bullying took place in the halls at school, where everybody was too obsessed with themselves to really, truly notice it happening, or after school, bullying now takes place on the internet. While in cases of instant messaging or emails this can make its occurrence more private, facebook walls and Formspring can also make it public property, and what’s worse, public entertainment.

As I mentioned above, I experienced this with our now local Formspring supserstar. We’ll call her Sally. Sally’s formspring updates were passed around like wildfire on facebook. I was constantly updated about this girl’s drama and I’d never even met her before. People watched this girl in pain as entertainment and I know of a few who added to it, not because they had any relationship with her, but rather just to keep the drama rolling. And in a way, Sally performed for her public. She could have easily deleted her formspring, but instead, she ANSWERED those questions and chose to make them public. While she complained about how mean people were being, she had the power to end at least the public nature of the bullying. I’m not trying to blame Sally for people bullying her – the sick people who chose to make her life hell are to blame. But Sally kept her formspring when she could have easily deleted it and she continued to respond to those who were bullying her. Maybe she couldn’t see the way out in the midst of the tormenting…or maybe she was performing.

It’s the chicken or the egg argument: which came first, mean teenagers or the platform to exploit it? Who do we blame, the kids who are bullying or the access we have to bullying that makes it so much easier? I’d blame it on a combination of things: the internet, sure, but also this freaky culture of fame-mongering where people will do just about anything to get their 15 minutes. And even if nobody is paying attention, we perform online. We make profiles, we make ourselves public. So, maybe we shouldn’t be framing this as the one-sided issue of the internet and outlets like formspring making it easier for our generation to be cruel bullies. Maybe we should recognize that the internet is making it much easier to be a target, as well.

Go Dominique and the Girl Scouts of America!

The advent of new media in recent years has been both a blessing and a curse to the youth of the world. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, we can hop on the computer and have a conversation with somebody half way around the world in thirty seconds or less - or more commonly, we can learn that the girl that sits behind us in History who always wears black and scowls actually has an intense love for narwhals and unicrons, by clicking on her photo album “I Love Narwhals and Unicorns.” We’re able to  instantly connect to others in a way no other generation has previously experienced, but we’re also exposed to the darker side of rapid, often anonymous, communication. Cyberbullying, defined as when someone is “tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another…using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones” is becoming a serious problem for teen internet users.

In recognition of this crisis, the Girl Scouts of America are taking action. Girl Scout Dominique Napolitano of West Islip, New York, along with talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw, will testify before Congress about cyberbullying today (Thursday, June 24th). Dominique will focus on the challenges she and her peers face online and the crippling effects of electronic bullying.

“It is very important for teens to promote online safety, because many teenagers fall victim to cyberbullying,” Dominique stated. “Hearing online safety tips from adults can be boring. Teens may feel like adults don’t understand and aren’t on the same level as them. But when the advice comes from another teen they might feel like the other person knows what they are going through. I am inspired to advocate for teen safety because I want to help save teens from feeling hurt or guilty.”

Dr. Phil - an apparent cyberbullying activist (?)

Dominique is not the only Girl Scout devoted to spreading awareness. She was one of a group of Girl Scouts who worked to create an online safety website – LMK designed to inform teens about cyberbullying, online sexual predators, cybersecurity and other internet related problems. A unique aspect of this online guide is that teens themselves largely contribute the information outlined on the site, and aim to raise awareness among their peers.

And, honestly, teens need to hear this information. Our parents were so worried about violent video games desenitizing us to violence, but in reality the sheer anonymity the internet allows us is having the same effect. Sure, shooting people for hours on end (even if it is virtual) is probably not doing great things for us, but at the same time, weilding the power to say whatever you want to whoever you want without ever having to look them in the face is its own issue. Staring at a screen and merely typing words just doesn’t force us to face the consequences of our words the same way the real world does. I learned that lesson – to a much lesser degree – on this blog. Typing your thoughts into a wordpress box seems like a private experience…until you realize thousands of people are reading what your saying and they all have their own lives and perspectives as well. I’m sure typing hateful comments into an IM screen is similar; it just doesn’t seem as real when you can torment someone then log off and go downstairs to eat dinner with your family.  

Not that that is any kind of excuse. In the face of recent cyberbullying tragedies – such as the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince from Massachusetts, who killed herself last January after being relentlessly harassed in school and through text and Facebook messages – it’s good to hear that other teens and the government are finally beginning not only to take this tragic phenomenon seriously, but are taking action.

*also (partially) posted at the NCRW’s REAL Deal Blog where I will be guest blogging this summer!

omgz txting!

It seems to me like our parents, and other various adults, are freaking out about the technology we have available to us today. I’ve always thought that if you’re responsible — you put up all the privacy settings, you don’t talk to strangers, you generally use your brain — technology is actually a positive thing. We have so much information available to us, and I think social networking is healthy, and a good thing for kids to learn how to do. And you don’t hear about 47 year old sexual predators masquerading as 15 year old guys (or girls…) so much anymore. Unless that’s more because it’s not fresh news, rather than it’s not occurring.

But as one of my former teachers recently observed, “Technology is sucking the emotions from today’s youth. Constant contact is not a good thing.”

And I don’t know, I think that’s kind of true (says the girl who spends hours every day working on her blog, reading other blogs, social networking and whatnot). But seriously – sometimes it’s good to have time to yourself, to be with yourself. I think this is especially true when it comes to technology and relationships.

I think it’s the norm now for teens in relationships to text each other constantly. We’re in loveeeeee it’s what we do. And I think the “what are you doing, what are you thinking, what are you looking at RIGHT THIS MINUTE” thing is not exactly new to my generation…I just think it’s evolved, and possibly not in a healthy way.

I’ve had friends whose significant others will text them up to 30 times in just an hour (or more) when they’re apart, wanting to know what they’re doing and who they’re with, or just trying to distract them from whatever they’re doing, because they’re not with their significant other.  I don’t know if technology is encouraging that kind of abusive behavior (yes, that’s abuse) but it’s definitely making it easier.

So when a reader told me about That’s Not Cool – a website about technology and abuse – I was glad somebody was addressing this problem (there is abuse associated with technology that is an every day occurrence, with familiar people, that needs to end).

That’s Not Cool is so great for teens because it’s really doesn’t feel like adults preaching to the poor, easily manipulated, dumb kids, which is something I’m pretty obviously against. It feels like information is being presented to us, and we’re given the ability to chose what we think is right. For example, this video on “textual harassment” where you get to pick what you want to happen:

They have a section where you can “give and get advice, read someone’s story or tell your own” and also have Callout Cards that are deliciously sarcastic, like this one:

So I definitely encourage people check That’s Not Cool out. And in general to just think before you text. Although “stalking” in the lighter sense of the term seems to have become more generally accepted…it’s still not a good thing.

- graduate from college
- get a job I don’t hate
- write and publish books
- hold the leaders of the free world hostage and make them listen to Abba
- beat Stephenie Meyer with a hard back copy of Breaking Dawn in a pillow case.

You know, the important stuff. But apparently I missed the memo. The one that says somewhere in the long-term goals section, a girl must list the desire to marry and procreate.

perhaps not

Just to set the record straight, I’m not going to say that the idea of finding a nice guy, having a big party to celebrate the finding of said guy, and makinglittle people out of our combined genetic material doesn’t sound like a potentially good time. But as a child of divorce, I also recognize that it could be a potentially disastrous time! And I think it’s a bit stupid to plan my life around that possibility.

What really irks me about it is that it carries the unspoken understanding that, if you don’t have these – a partner and children – your life has less meaning, less worth, than someone who does. For some reason, your life is not complete until you have these things. Admittedly, men do feel this pressure too. But I haven’t noticed it being quite as intense as it is for women. For my brother, the question is ‘don’t you want a girl friend?’ For me, the question tends to be ‘don’t you want a husband?’  For guys, there is an implication of impermanence; that girls are transitory. Women are burdened with permanence; we have to lure in a man, beat him over the head with our rolling pins, and drag him to our happy home.

I want to know why can’t we all just follow our respective bliss’? What’s wrong with writing my stories, starting my small business, having some good friends, and being happy with that? If I find someone I want to spiritually, economically, and emotionally tie myself to for the rest of my life, then YAY ME. But I refuse to be burdened with societies’ judgment that I have failed at life because I lack a significant other. Marriage is a wonderful institution. I’m just not ready to be institutionalized.

Maria also writes for her own blog, http://mariameeps.blogspot.com/