If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, that depends on whether it has a Facebook page. Sounds ridiculous, huh? I thought the same thing when I recently applied for a job to be an interactive editor for a news website.

I had an interview with the publisher six months ago for a different position and I was rejected based upon the fact that I just wasn’t tech-savvy enough. Now, before I can land an interview for the interactive editor position, I must have a Facebook page.

Up until now, I’ve been virtually untraceable. And with my new married last name, I am a Canadian-born female bodybuilder. My real identity is probably like 12 pages into a Google search.

This is how I like it.

People from high school can’t find me online and there’s a freeing sense of anonymity that comes with being unplugged. And then there’s also the very depressing feeling of knowing what my future will be like if I don’t plug-in.

I’ve been unemployed since November 2008 when my niche publication, an alternative weekly newspaper in New Haven, Connecticut, closed.

Kept afloat by ad sales, we were a sinking ship in the economic storm. Unable to change direction and harness new technologies, like even having a semi-modern website, it wasn’t a surprise to see two years of my hard work tossed aside on a rainy Thursday morning.

Inside the walls of a terrarium — our office was virtually a fish bowl in a larger daily newspaper newsroom — I packed up my things as tired, baggy-eyed reporters watched in horror. It wasn’t that they cared about me or my newspaper, a rag they deemed worthless anyway — it was that they could be next and soon would be.

If treading water in the media field is even possible, I’ve been doing so with a weighted vest and fistfuls of bricks.

After two weeks of moping, redoing my resume, creating a blog, and forgetting to shower, I picked up part-time work at my family’s business.

Some romanticize what I did, calling my new position, “barista,” but clad in khakis, a maroon shirt, and a rumpled baseball cap, the only thing I felt like was a failure.

I spent a year, at age 26, working my high school job. Cream-cheesing bagels for housewives and adding exactly one and half Splendas to skim lattes, I watched my life flash before my eyes.

Once an ambitious journalist driven to achieve greatness, I was foundering in a sea of depression, teetering between giving up forever and finding light in the abyss.

It was no shock to me that once I had created a blog, which I seldom updated, the technology became passé. It was Twitter and Facebook that mattered and even the Situation Room on CNN knew it.

As John King and crew explored the technology of touch screen, and clumsily at that, I was perfecting cappuccino foam and contemplating life as a stay-at-home mother of two pugs and two cats.

I had no choice but to keep trying. I applied to regular news jobs and jobs in publishing. I made it to final interviews and even got one job, which turned into a month-long wait for paperwork that never materialized.

Twice I was told my technical skills just weren’t up to par. Journalists were not just journalists anymore. They were “Multimedia Journalists,” “Online Producers,” and digital miracle workers.

Luckily, I was saved by my resume and I finally landed a part-time job as a content editor for a news/marketing website. And then, around the same time, I got another part-time job selling widgets for a community watch website.

My resume grew and I felt like part of society again.

I said goodbye to flavored coffee and hello to my new technological future.

Or so I thought.

Between me and a fulltime job as the interactive editor was Facebook.

Going against the freedom I’ve enjoyed for over two decades, I opted to create a Facebook page.

I’m not going to lie. I cried. Yup, real tears.

“Welcome,” it said. Or, “Congratulations.” But I only saw, “You are officially a member of the fake-friends club.”

My first Facebook message:

Subject: “HA HA”

Message: “I knew you would get here someday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

And for the first week on Facebook I was really popular. Everyone was happy to see me back in the loop. I admit even I found myself happy to re-connect with friends.

It didn’t last.

The truth is, I don’t really have anything to tell people. I don’t need affirmations about my every choice. No one in my life besides the person sitting across from me at the dinner table needs to know what I’m eating.

But, on the other hand, I’ve learned that using this technology for what it was built for — “social networking” — makes a lot of sense for a newspaper.

It could be the very thing that will keep newspapers moving forward in the digital media future.

And now, the girl who still isn’t very fond of Facebook for personal reasons can’t wait to exploit it for all the good it can do for a community.

Yeah, change sometimes is hard, but change can be good.

And then there’s always waiting for a facsimile or a carrier pigeon…

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Tags: all work, technology, trusted media & news // 1 Comment »