On the one hand, it has the power to separate people from one another. Every day, there are more and more ways to waste time on the web, and every day there are more and more people wasting time alone with their PC, instead of going outside their homes and doing actual things. And the problem doesn't stop when they do leave their houses. You'll see whole families, waiting for their meals at a restaurant, ignoring each other while they text, or check their email, or look at a YouTube video. I know a few people who can't go more than an hour or so without checking in on Facebook, because they are so hooked into it. It's at the point where even young kids who have absolutely no reason to have a Facebook page (like my 10-year-old daughter) think that they NEED a Facebook page, because they've come to think that is the best way to keep in touch with the people they know. Conversations are so old school; why bother when you can post a comment on your friend's wall, or even better, just click "like"? In a lot of ways, the internet has undermined the relationships and activities many people used to enjoy.
And then, on the other hand, the internet has given us the potential for connections and opportunities we might not have otherwise had. Let me offer you my heartwarming Christmas story as an example of what I mean.
I am a rabid fan of the indie rock group Elbow. They're from Manchester, England, and I've been following and supporting them for years, with an enthusiasm that most people usually reserve for sports teams or Jesus. When an Elbow forum called Elbow Room Only made its online debut in 2008, I was quick to join up. It was great to find so many fellow fans, especially since this band has not exactly become a household name here in the US. At last, I had some folks with whom I could share my thoughts and feelings about this incredible music! And they turned out to be a really nice bunch of folks, too, with some of them becoming the 21st-century equivalent of pen pals. I have sent and received goodie packages, exchanged emails and Christmas cards, and generally kept connected to several of them over the past 2 years.
Over the past little while, there have been a lot of happy conversations on the Elbow forum. News was posted on the Elbow website that they'd be releasing a new album this coming March, with a tour to follow in the UK. Of course, this put all of us Elbow geeks in a proper tizzy, though some were a bit tizzier than others. I am one of only a few Americans on the forum; nearly all the rest are from the UK/Ireland or Europe. And since the tour dates were all in the UK/Ireland or Europe...well, I was a bit less able to join in the fun. My fellow Elbow-heads were posting about the shows they planned to attend, while I just had to wait until (eventually) some US dates would (hopefully) be posted.
Or so I thought. As it turns out, the internet was about to play a vital role in The Greatest Christmas Ever.
At this point in our heartwarming tale, a bit of background info might be useful. I've been married nearly 20 years now. However, my husband and I went through a really (really, REALLY) rough patch and were apart for some years, beginning when when our daughter was just about to start school. Only recently have we managed to work our way back to some normalcy, and over the past year or two, we've really made a lot of progress. Things are better for us now than they've been in quite a long time, as a family and as a couple, and I think it was for this reason that my husband decided he was going to make this a Christmas to remember.
He knew just how much I wanted to see Elbow in concert. However, the odds of them coming here to Florida are approximately the same as the odds of me joining the Celine Dion fan club (in other words, less than zero). Now, I've actually traveled out of state to see them twice before, but I would never even remotely have considered trying to arrange a trip outside the US to catch one of their shows. So, he decided to do it for me.
He knew that I had a pen pal-type relationship with one particular member of the Elbow forum, a perfectly lovely woman named Lorraine, who lives in one of England's Northern Counties. My husband and I had even planned to try and meet up with Lorraine and her husband (also an Elbow fan/forum member) when we take our planned family trip to visit his relatives in Scotland this coming summer. Lorraine, he thought, could help him execute his cunning plan.
He knew her name, and tried searching for her email address or other contact info, but came up empty handed. He also knew that Lorraine and I follow each other on Twitter, so he created a Twitter account and tried finding her that way. That was how he got his first break. As it happens, Lorraine had started up her own site for Elbow fans (called, appropriately enough, elbowfans), as a sort of sister site to the other forum, and she has a second Twitter account to tweet about updates to that site. My husband saw one such tweet, and found his way to the elbowfans site, where he promptly signed up as a new member. Lorraine, in her admin capacities, sent him a welcome message, and then he let her know who he was and what he was up to.
From there, he and Lorraine started communicating via email, and with her suggestions and assistance, my husband managed to arrange a complete trip for me. I would be flying to Manchester, Elbow's hometown, to see them in concert this coming spring. He got me the plane tickets, a ticket to the gig, and a room in a really sweet hotel. He made plans to work from home while I'm away, so he can look after the kid and the dogs, and he enlisted Lorraine's help in looking after me once I'm there, as she and her husband will be coming into Manchester themselves for the show and have offered to hang with me and keep me company there. Like I said before, greatest. Christmas. EVER.
It's ridiculous how much time and effort he put into planning this for me. And it was all through social media and websites that he managed it. In this case, those same online entities that isolate so many of us actually worked to create new connections and strengthen old ones. In fact, the first time I had the chance to hear Lorraine's voice came on Christmas morning, when my husband told me about my trip and gave me Lorraine's number. Previously, our communication had all been online or in the mail, so having a proper chat with her was truly a gift in itself (See? Didn't I tell you this was a heartwarming story?).
I am profoundly amazed and grateful, to my husband and to Lorraine, for the work they did to make this happen. But I am also grateful for the technology that enabled them to do what they did. Somehow, two people who live thousands of miles apart from one another and had never met, managed to pull off a mindblowing and brilliantly sneaky Christmas surprise for me, all via online interaction. As I was saying, the internet's a funny old thing.
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