Posted on November 20, 2007
Connections Still Lost in Age of Social Networking
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
With all the social networking sites out there, it's easier than ever to keep in contact with people, as well as reconnect with people from your past. This is especially true of people you haven't seen since, say, high school. With all the methods to stay connected, you would think it would be easier than ever to accomplish tasks such as high school reunions. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, these sites are not yet being fully utilized by reunion committees.
Case in point: my 10 year high school reunion was set to happen this year. I was actually looking forward to attending--seeing what my fellow classmates have been up to, who is already successful, and who is still trying to find their way, that sort of thing. The reunion was set to happen earlier this month, but the event was cancelled at the end of October. The reason? The reunion company hired was unable to locate enough classmates.
I was not on the committee, but the organization of the reunion did not appear to have been handled in the best manner. A page just for the reunion was created on Myspace, and many of my classmates friended the profile, but this page was not really used to post or disseminate information. In fact, when the reunion was cancelled, it took weeks for them to post a list of "missing" classmates. When the list was finally posted, at least 1/4 of the people on this list were not only on Myspace, but also a friend of the reunion profile! How can these people be missing when they clearly have a way to be contacted, and have an interest in the reunion if they were a friend of the reunion profile? Just by simply typing in the classmate's name into Myspace, several of the "missing" people could have been found. In the case of those who friended the reunion profile, posting a message asking for contact info might have helped. Why was the list not posted earlier? People cannot provide information if they do not know it is needed--keeping people informed and up-to-date is key in planning events, and with all the bulletin and event features on these networking sites, there is no reason why people couldn't have been kept in the loop.
It just seemed like the committee and reunion company were waiting for the information to come to them, instead of using resources such as Classmates.com, Facebook, and Myspace. No reunion group was set up in Facebook that I was aware of, thus not taking advantage of this popular site either. While Facebook does not turn up as many graduates for my year as Myspace, there are still a few people on there who cannot be found on Myspace.
Adding to the frustration is the fact that, a few days ago, the Myspace profile was deleted, thus increasing the misutilization of this web tool. In the event that the committee tries to plan an 11 year reunion, they will have to try even harder to reach out to the class, since I doubt most people will be motivated now to actively seek out more information.
With the power of the internet allowing people to find information and locate lost friends more easily than ever, it seemed to me that something like a reunion should be a piece of cake to organize. Sadly, this was not the case, and now my class will probably not have one at all. It makes me wonder how on earth these events took place back in the days before technology--perhaps it is a sign that the traditional non-electronic methods are still effective. In reality though, the committee and/or company was probably hoping that everyone would somehow know where to submit their contact info and that there would be no need to search for anyone. While that certainly could have happened, the lack of announcements or notifications alerting people where they could find reunion details or submit their information made it nearly impossible for the "lost" people to be "found"--even those who were never truly lost to begin with.
That's pathetic. I'm actually in the process of organizing my 20 year reunion right now, and plan on using events.com, classmates.com and the high school's website. Didn't think about setting up a MySpace page.