Templates, Forms how do I identify myself within thee?

Unless you are talented in writing code, you have probably used a template to create your page or identity online. Facebook is ripe with these, so is Blogger. I even built a whole commercial websites using templates, then I learned how to manipulate code and made it better ;p

Christine Rosen discusses social media and virtual friendship and does so from a very 2007 bend. Since then we have learned that Social Media is not a big scary monster for teenagers and young adults only, now it is old school, left to those of us not hip enough to move on the next trend of social networking. There has been no lack of research on how social media is connected with our, and especially our teenager's mental health.  Christine could say "I told you so." But she hasn't published much to The NewAlantas lately.

Something about gathering friends by those answering similar things in the same categories...
Hold that thought. It's a real-life distraction break intruding on my online musings.

This little cutie climbed into my lap, nuzzled me said "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" and then hit my glasses off.

ok, Back to carefully constructed cyber-reality.

So identities we create online are often a result of filling in forms and are therefore limited to the nature and design of the forms or templates. Do these templates construct our idenity? Jenny Davis seems to think they do. Which brings me back to Christine, who thinks that we try to make ourselves unique on these online social media templates by doing things just like everybody else. Apparently, there is/was a tend of profile pictures with fingers up noses. With the group I hang with on social media, the trend is one of using our baby's pictures as our profile pics. I feel it helps send the message that I am a proud mommy and am not looking for social interactions with those looking for dates.

As I have worked on genealogy and indexing, a very addicting hobby, I have learned to value forms. Geneology becomes a much easier pursuit when forms became the rage. Forms make it so much easier to figure out what is going on, especially when they are typed. Before forms came on the scene you have to peruse the handwritten notes and books of the clergy. Not only do you have to decipher handwriting, but you have to wade through a lot of information that doesn't relate to what you are looking for at all, then you have to learn another language to read the clergy's notes from whatever countries your ancestors lived in before they immigrated to America, in my case a lot of German and Norwegian. Luckily for us, a lot of people volunteered hours to do "indexing." Indexing is taking these records and filling out the information into computer forms that become searchable, and are instantly linked back to the pictures of the original records.

So I guess, what we have now is not only templates constructing our online identities, but are also helping us construct the identities of our progenitors and also where we came from. Do you think they will help us figure out where we are going?  Do you think I could find an online form to see my grandkids?