Maybe it’s because I am not always a social creature, but I am having a hard time fully understanding the social networking culture on the computer.

Millions of people, including those closest to me (my wife and son) regularly carry on computer conversations with friends and family. Much of this is done on the phenomenon known as Facebook.

Son spends most of his evenings in his room talking on Facebook or through instant messaging, and especially with telephone in hand sending brief messages, a practice known as texting.

Lil’ Red, my wife, starts the morning by firing up her computer, posting a message for the day on Facebook and checking to see what anyone else might me doing or thinking.

This may be more than a fad, perhaps a wave of the future and I don’t want to be completely left out. I am just judicious in posting comments to comments others have posted. Also, I need to change my way of thinking in order to join computer society.

Bowing to pressure, I set up a Facebook page with limited information about myself and just one picture. Lil’ Red probably has 100 pictures available for viewing on her page. Actually, someone can visit her page to see pictures of me and son Brady. She has done the work, so I don’t have to.

My Facebook profile shows that I now have 90 friends or, as Brady refers to them, “Facebook acquaintances.” Why so few when Lil’ Red has more than 300? I like to think of myself as discerning.

The way that Facebook works, if you get a friend, then a good number of their friends are suggested as possibilities to add as your friends. The problem with this approach is that I don’t know these people. I also have certain rules in accepting or inviting friends. The rules are not hard and fast, but are generally followed.

For example, I don’t pick Facebook acquaintances who are younger than about 20 years of age. Imagine the problems that could arise if they are admitting something on the computer that you know would not be approved of by their parents. Do you tell their parents? Rat out a Facebook friend? See why I am age selective?

There also doesn’t seem to be much reason to pick someone you see on a regular basis as a Facebook friend. Visit with them in person. It’s a lot more personal. This rule is not set in stone and some of my list of 90 are these folks. Most of my list is of people with whom I attended high school or college. We have done some catching up.

I also am not attuned to posting random comments, or commenting on the random thoughts of others. A personal note that someone is sitting in front of a fireplace prior to going to bed doesn’t need a response from me. I don’t know what to say. I would hate to ruin their peaceful mood, if you can call sitting in front of a fireplace with a computer on your lap very peaceful.

An idea I had after setting up my Facebook page and reading some of the postings, was to create my own regular informative log. I thought about noting the time each day of certain bodily functions. Then I would collect comments from others. If there were enough comments, I could compile them into a book. But, on futher consideration, some people might be offended if I made light of social networking. Over the years, I’ve learned you don’t act on every halfbaked idea that comes to mind, nor do you utter every thought that pops into your head.

All this aside, I need to make an effort to get a better grasp on the whole computer messaging scene. We set up a Facebook page for the newspaper where we post some extra pictures we take. This is something that can be put to better use. It needs to remain fresh, but perhaps I need to assign someone who is not so moldy headed as me to work out the details.

But whenever the day comes that sees me fully participating in a computer society, I absolutely refuse to update my musical tastes beyond about 1974, except for Jimmy Buffett.