Last to Hear the News on Twitter

I recently found out about a long-time friend's first pregnancy on Twitter, when she mentioned attending a prenatal yoga class.  Uh, is there something you're not telling me? I @ replied.  Then I was graced with a Direct Message telling me about her pregnancy.  I instantly started calculating the state of our friendship.  If your girlfriend doesn't call to tell you she's pregnant, and you don't get a personal or even a mass email announcement, what does that mean?  How many rungs down on the friendship ladder do you have to be to find out about her first pregnancy on Twitter?  Even then it wasn't an announcement, but it was talked about as if it were common knowledge.  I was the last person in town to hear the news, and I had to put it together myself.  If there was a friendship ladder, I was the one holding it against the wall while other people climbed it.

It is inarguable that the internet has changed the way we share information with others, often in a way that makes us feel closer.  When I web chat with my sister, it's the next best thing to being in the same room.  On Twitter I can see in real time how my friends are doing--whose kids are sick and who just saw the greatest film ever.  But the more public our private lives become, the harder it is to measure our closeness in traditional ways.  It's one thing if you know you are a "contact" of someone, but on Facebook you're a "friend", and borrowing that term blurs the line between real-life friends and acquaintances the same way that sharing our previously private information publicly does.

I remember back in the day when you only had to analyze what people said and how they said it.  (Did he say he likes me?  Or, he likes me?)  But with social media, the medium we use adds a whole different layer of social meaning.  (Did he text you, or tweet you?)  It also adds another means by which we can misunderstand or be misunderstood.

I know it's hard to keep track of whom we've told what when we're following hundreds of people a day, the way my mother sometimes forgets to which daughter she's told which story. But with my dear friends, I'm trying to learn how to express the closeness of our relationship in this strange new world. For now, this means I'm pulling back to more concrete signs of friendship.  Care packages and letters in the mail.  Calls to say, I'm thinking about you this very second.  I want my close friends to know I'm not just "following" them, I'm their companion for the journey.  When something big happens, they won't have to worry about being the last to hear the news on Twitter.

An original NYC Moms Blog post. Jen Lee is the author of Solstice: Stories of Light in the Dark.  You can read more of her work at jenlee.net, and follow her on Twitter (jenleedotnet).