Social Media Experiment

[thud85]

Originally Posted by freshnesschronic

I don't know what to say about my generation, but I proved that many many young adults are so reliant, so tuned into to social mediums and social networking like Twitter, Tumblr, MySpace, Facebook, etc...that they don't really get to know the real people behind the webpage!

If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't know when anyone's (except my immediate family and maybe 3 other people) birthday is... If it weren't for my cell phone, I wouldn't know what anyone's phone number is (except my parents and friends from high school's parents' houses)... But if I didn't HAVE these tools, I would keep an address book and birthday calendar. It's not a matter of me not actually "knowing" my Facebook contacts (although I don't actually know all of them), it's just that tools of technology have updated the way people keep track of things.

A friend changing his/her birthday on Facebook is the same to me as that person coming over to my house and changing it in a handwritten contact book or calendar. I wouldn't expect my friends to remember my birthday... I know hundreds of people and there are hundreds of days in the year, so I don't take it personally that people might need help remembering. If Facebook is that tool, that's OK with me...

[Sundae]

I remember reading an interview with an avuncular, rather jolly person - an author if I remember correctly. He had quite a few Godchildren (I think he was gay) and admitted he had no intention of keeping up with all their different birthdays. Instead he decided on one day, the same every year, in which he would treat and spoil them. The same day for all of them I mean. It was his Godchildrens' Day. He said they loved it, because it was like an extra birthday.

Good for him, I say. One less card on your birthday as a child doesn't matter - you get plenty. An extra day of being special and treated is worth far more. However I will admit - as an adult - one more card on my birthday makes my year

[Lamplighter]

We too liked that sort of idea.
When we adopted our 3rd daughter her birthday was Jan 3rd but she came to live with us in March.
So to avoid the too-close-to-Xmas business, we started celebrating "Coming Home Day" on March 3rd.

This also meant that explaining the whole adoption business to our kids and the neighborhood was mandatory from the beginning,
and solved a lot of other sorts of problems.

And we still celebrate March 3rd even tho she is 40+ yrs old now with 2 kids of her own.

[sweetwater]

We have an accidental birthday merge in our family. My mother's b-day is Jan 3rd (but she is not Lamplighter's daughter, I'm pretty sure!) and mine is Jan 4th. And I'm a twin. So all three of us celebrated on the same day with the same cake, when we celebrated at all. Yep, that "too-close-to-Xmas business" thing was an issue for us, too.

[ZenGum]

Any person born within 7 days of December 25th should be entitled to nominate a different day as their birthday.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Any person born within 7 days of December 25th should be entitled to nominate a different day as their birthday.

I'd extend that out to two weeks on either side. At least.


Incidentally, there are a LOT of crazy people whose birthdays fall very close to major holidays.

[Cicero]

Happy belated birthday!

[HungLikeJesus]

That's just because there are so many major holidays.


And so many crazy people.