Social Networking

When you live in a country that is 10,000km away from home, and the time difference is 14 hours behind, it may be hard to communicate with family and friends. Luckily with such websites and programs as Facebook, Twitter and Skype, staying in contact with family is easier then it would have been 10 years ago.

Facebook is the largest social networking site on the internet, it has over 600million active users and it allows us to leaves messages to friends and family and they can reply whenever they want to. So if I want to ask a friend something or just see how they are going, I will just leave them a message, and they can get back to me whenever they are online. Most mornings I will wake up and there could be up to 130 people online on Facebook, so It is fun being able to talk to all my friends and family. Like I said in a previous post, when I go on bus trips to Sarasota and Port Charlotte, I connect to the buses wi-fi using my iPhone, and spend some time talking to everyone back home before I have a little nap.

Twitter is relatively new, and it's not really used to communicate with people, it's used to let everyone know what you are up to. I do have a Twitter account, but rarely use it, because I don't have enough interesting things to say everyday. A lot of famous sports stars use Twitter, such as Australian Major League League Pitcher, Richard Thompson who has 4,000 followers.

Even though these social networking sides have their upside, they also have a downside. Since you are posting online, it is there for the world to see, so you always have to make sure you don't say anything or upload any pictures or videos that may upset anyone. In the past many athletes and celebrities have been caught complaining online, or have been shot in an unflattering picture, and have had to apologise publicly for their actions. Sometimes what has been put online in so severe it could ruin a players career and tarnish their reputation.

The internet isn't very good in our hotel, so I have to use Skype at certain times of the day when there aren't many people in the hotel. The best time for this is when you come back from the field early, and half the team is away on the road at a game. Since we are all away from home, when we are back at the hotel nearly everyone will be on the internet so the network gets a bit congested and if you want to have a good Skype call, you need to have a faster internet connection.

Without the help of Facebook this blog wouldn't have spread so easily, and I would like to thank the Facebook administrators for the Australian Baseball Digest and the Sydney Blue Sox for sharing my blog with everyone online.