The Future of Us

The Future of Us describes the life of two friends named Josh and Emma. They have been friends until one night when they went to the Toy Story premier with friends. Josh told Emma he liked her. Emma said she liked him but Josh misinterpreted it and tried to kiss her. Emma responded with, "No. You're Josh." Ever since that night they haven't acted the same around each other. Until one night when Josh gives Emma an America Online CD-ROM. Emma uses it and creates an AOL email account. Then a small white box with a blue border pops up asking her to re-enter her email and password. Her computer screen freezes and next thing you know, she is signed on to Facebook... but Facebook hasn't even been invented yet.

She sees all these tiny pictures with words following afterwords, or 'status updates' as we call them, and then notices a small picture of a woman sitting on a beach and next to the picture is the name Emma Nelson Jones.  Emma clicks on the picture and another page loads with an enlarged version of the photo and all this information. She reads that Emma Nelson Jones went to Lake Forest High School. She is married to someone named Jordan Jones Jr. and was born on July 24. It confuses Emma more because she goes to Lake Forest High and her birthday is also on July 24.

She hears Josh skating home and calls him over. Josh comes and sees the profile of Emma Nelson Jones. His thoughts? He thinks this is all a prank. Emma also believes this is a prank at first until she notices Emma's most recent update stating that she might never be happy in the future. That update was on Thursday May nineteenth. And the current date they are in is Sunday May nineteenth. There is a brand new picture on Emma's profile. Then Emma tells Josh that Facebook... is from the future.

The next day Emma and Josh go to school together. Emma then tells Josh that if it's someone pulling a prank on her, then that someone is also pulling a prank on him too. Josh doesn't believe it and Emma explains that before he came over last night she checked Emma Nelson Jones's list of friends. She was looking and saw the name Josh Templeton along with a picture of an older him. She describes this older Josh to have short hair and glasses. She checked Josh's profile and it says his birthday is April 5th and it says he went to the University of Washington. The last thing Emma says seems to surprise Josh. It says he is married to Sydney Mills, who Josh thinks is the hottest girl in school.

The whole story switches from the point of view of Emma to the point of view of Josh. It's actually really interesting to read a book where two normal kids just sign in to AOL and are then logged on to Facebook where their futures have already been made for them. They have to get of the awkward space between their friendship in order to work on this Facebook problem they are experiencing.  After they see Josh's profile they scroll through Emma's pictures... they find one that, according to Emma, hasn't even been developed yet.

How would I feel if I logged into my AOL and then logged into Facebook before it was invented? I'd feel pretty weird though I honestly don't think I'd keep investigating. I'd just ignore it and try to avoid Facebook even though I don't do that today. It's actually a really interesting thought. How would you feel if you logged into AOL and were then redirected onto Facebook before Facebook was invented?