The Facebook Quandary

(A generation ago, that would have been a title for an episode of "Star Trek" or "Doctor Who.")

So, anyway, here's my quandary. My nephew is on Facebook. So are a lot of other people I know/knew. (I looked people up on his account.)

On one level, I find the possibility intriguing. Everyone has someone they were great friends with years ago and lost touch with, and the thought of reconnecting with some of those people is enticing.

HOWEVER....

As evidenced by the amount of time since I last posted on this blog (and the number of people I owe e-mails to), I am obviously terrible at keeping up with such things. Adding Facebook would only spread my already limited time thinner, not to mention adding a whole other layer of things-to-waste-time-on-online, a category I am far from needing to pad.

More importantly, as I read in an article on Facebook and such phenomena a while back, the truth is: There is a reason people lose touch with each other in the first place. I have a hard enough time keeping up correspondence with the people I have been bound and determined to remain in touch with all along. If I didn't have the time or inclination to maintain a correspondence with people years ago, where do I expect that time and inclination to come from now, when I am busier than ever I was when I was single and childless? There is little more awkward than searching out an old friend, only to abandon the effort to keep in touch once again.

So there's my quandary: to Facebook, or not to Facebook? I'm leaning towards not, for the above reasons. Any of you on Facebook may try to convince me otherwise.