Time Magazine’s Person of the Year is…..

So, if you haven’t heard who Time’s Person of the Year is yet, it’s Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old co-founder and CEO of Facebook.

Tell the truth. Did you know who Mark Zuckerberg was a couple of years ago? Time says they chose him “for changing how we all live our lives.” Wait a minute. I, for one, find this to be a gross generalization. How we ALL live our lives? Excuse me.

OK, for one thing, the only reason Zuckerberg is Person of the Year is because of that movie and, more to the point, because old people like me are now on Facebook. Think about it. Who even reads Time Magazine? Of the 20 or 30 readers it still has, they’re probably all old like me.

So, Zuckerberg, to be officially recognized, you must be known to Baby Boomers. It takes some of the shine off that Person of the Year trophy, doesn’t it? Now that we’ve wrested the mouse out of the youthful hands of our children, we’re using Facebook to connect with old high school classmates, let our “friends” know that we’ve just dropped the kids off at school and are going for a latte, or most embarrassing of all, playing games like Farmville.

Yes, I have a Facebook page and I kind of like it. Being a procrastinator and woefully bad friend about staying in touch with people, I do like that I can connect to people in a really lazy way. I also like that two out of three of my kids have “friended” me, but I would still rather talk to them on the phone. I do like to see their pictures, their funny stuff and shared videos. I like sharing those things on Facebook.

Do I get on Facebook every day? No. Sometimes I don’t look at it for days and days and days. It does have a certain voyeuristic quality, in a real time-wasting way. I mean, you can go on and look at your “friends” stuff any time of the day or night and they never know, but it’s just so boring. If I want to read something entertaining, I’ll read a book.

It’s not that I don’t want to know what my hundreds of friends are thinking and doing ALL THE TIME, but well, I really don’t. I would much rather not know anything you’re doing for a day, a week or two or even a year, then have coffee with you and catch up. I want the glowing aftermath. The story of life events that have been burnished by time and thoughtfulness. I want the unimportant details pruned out and the funny, truthful, embarrassing, helpful, wonderful, amazing parts left in. This is who you are.