Hello friends.

We have a great story called “Citizen Facebook” — The World is my Neighborhood.

This story is about all of us.  I will be writing it from an “I” perspective so I don’t get confused. I was recently thinking how Facebook and social media as whole gave me neighbors from all over the world. Pre Social media, my neighbors were the people that lived on the same block  as me or in the same apartment buildings. If you think about that we really were limited as to who we met and / or communicated with.  Even with that, I hardly communicated or even saw my neighbors anyway.

Thanks to social media my neighborhood is the whole world now. And thanks to social media, I communicate with my worldly neighbors much more then i did with my actual / physical neighbors from years ago up til this very day.  I have friends that i speak to everyday from New York City, Australia, Italy, the Philippines and so on and so on and so on.  So even though I am in a neighborhood in Puerto Rico now, I speak to my global neighbors way more then my actual physical neighbors.

We always hear people saying “I’m friends with him or her on Facebook”  Or, “He or she is my Facebook friend”  —  Almost like a Facebook friend is different then an actual friend.  That was true at the beginning of this new world. But now, a virtual life is not a fantasy life anymore. A virtual life today is as much part of your life as your physical world.

I will take it a step further.  I called this piece “Citizen Facebook” because in reality, Facebook is the largest country in  the world.  Most people would say China or India is with just over a billion people each. Facebook’s population is 1.5 billion.  And unlike other countries, the population is actively communicating with each other day in and day out. And unlike other countries, we don’t need passports, visa’s or any other documents to enter this country.  As a citizen of Facebook, I don’t have to call someone to make plans, I just plug in.  My neighborhood is enriched with animal loving people from around the globe.

The thing I appreciate most about this new world is I got to meet tons of new people that i connect with. People I would’ve never met or spoken to otherwise.  I met my wife on Instagram. I shared my family and dogs with my neighbors from around the world. Thanks to Facebook and Social media, my life went way beyond the apartment buildings I lived in, or the neighbors on the cul-de-sac (dead end street) I lived on.

Social media has eradicated all barriers of communication. Today more than ever, the world is one.  The millennials understand this innately as many of their lives started inside of “Citizen Facebook”  — And with that, they will be more open minded to new cultures, religions, beliefs, traditions and so on and so on.  The days of “The Good Old Boys” are over.  And i do not mean that in an age sense.  I mean that in the “Narrow-Minded” thinking sense.

Its important for us Pre-Millennials to understand that the gaps from one country to another have been bridged by social media. There are no gaps anymore.  You can take the word “stereotype” and throw it in the garbage. You can be anywhere you want, talk to anyone you want and share with anyone you want.  “Citizen Facebook” has more freedoms then any other country in the world.  To the resisters out there who enjoy the judgmental and stereotypical world, get ready to understand where the slogan; “If you can’t beat them, Join them” came from.

Being a citizen of Facebook allowed me to have the greatest neighborhood in the world.  In fact, my neighborhood has exceeded anything I ever could have dreamed it to be.

I guess this is what the TV personality Mr. Rogers meant in 1963 when he sang; ♫♫♫ It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, the neighborhood, the neighborhood ♫♫♫

Signing off from Puerto Rico on day 259, Dr. Harp Seal for Sammy & Family.