The Facebook Family Phenomenon

Facebook is a pretty interesting animal–something that has fascinated me for quite some time. I really noticed its uniqueness this past weekend with Mother's Day. It has increasingly become the norm for Facebook users to change their profile picture on special days, notably on Mother's Day, people post an endearing photo of them with their mom. It's traditionally a childhood picture that implies sweet memories and parental doting of the children. The captions give "shout outs" and words of gratitude to their hard-working moms. It's affectionate, but it's so incredibly public.

And I partake in the public displays of affection, too! (My mom even posted the photo above.) But I think it's a little bizarre.

In the big picture, it seems as though if we really cared about our beautiful moms, we would call them and actually say the things we post on Facebook; we'd go home to spend the day with her; we would make it personal, not public.

For the record, I give my mom a ring and let her know how much I love her. And the funny thing is, she appreciated the little note on Facebook. I wonder, though, how these holidays would be different if Facebook remained the social media platform, leaving us to do the human things, like saying I love you.

(P.S. Facebook gifts are also weird.)