Janet Hook is a spring and fall resident of Cranberry Isles and a winter resident of Bethesda, Maryland.

I first joined Facebook the way most people did. Everyone was signing up in 2009, so I did too. I was hardly a friend-hungry, status-conscious teenager; I was a 50-something mother of two. I friended my relatives and pals, prowled for former boyfriends, but that was about it. I hardly ever posted and spent little time scrolling.

Frankly, I hated the thing. I am repulsed by bragging, and Facebook was one big brag board for people showcasing their fancy vacations. Their perfect children. Award ceremonies. More insidiously, Facebook went on to distort the self-image and social skills of an entire generation and to become a megaphone for misinformation.

There were so many reasons to hate Facebook. Until I didn’t.

I spent most of my adult years living and working as a political reporter in Washington, D.C., where I saw Facebook as a corrosive force fostering the values of divisiveness, competition and self-promotion that swept through American politics over my lifetime.

But my life took a dramatic turn about five years ago when I started spending several months of the year in Maine. On Great Cranberry Island, with a year-round population of about 60, the town Facebook page serves a very different function. It’s a community bulletin board with must-have information and lively neighborhood chatter. It’s like a party line phone line, a window onto a small rural town that is a world apart from Washington, D.C.

To be sure, there are political divisions on Great Cranberry Island. There was a to-do over a Black Lives Matter banner and the display of a Confederate flag a few years ago. And there are plenty of bitter disputes over local matters. But the Cranberry Isles information page is dominated by the mundane matters of surviving on a bridgeless island with just one general store and scant other commercial life.

Facebook is where the ferry service announces if a run has been canceled. Once, while I was on the mainland en route to the island, I called the ferry office to be sure it was running in iffy weather. The answer was brusque: “We SAID so on Facebook.”

The page came to the rescue when one mom was in the middle of baking her kid’s birthday cake and found she had no eggs. A call went out on Facebook, and eggs appeared on her doorstep in no time. 

When we have a power outage, I can quickly find out if it is island-wide or just my corner of the island. Facebook is where community events — an art show, a bluegrass concert, a discussion of a school reorganization plan — are announced.

Sometimes, people get called out for bad behavior. Once I left a harbor wheelbarrow — used to transport baggage from the ferry to the parking lot — at the wrong end of the dock. By the time I got home, a photograph of the offending cart was posted on Facebook.

Many people complain that Facebook bombards them with unwanted ads and ugly political messages. To my delight, Facebook’s algorithm has got my number. About everything I see on my feed is related to Maine, birding and wildlife. Best of all, it keeps me in close touch with the needs of my island community.

 “Does anyone have pinking shears?”
“Can everyone keep an eye out for my cat?”
“The northern lights are out!”

In my winter home community, we have a neighborhood listserv that fulfills some of these community communications needs. But Cranberry Island’s Facebook page has a hair-trigger real-time quality that makes it more like an illustrated Slack channel.

Call it a 21st century upgrade to small-town living. Like most modern developments,  it comes with a downside. Some old-timers on the island say neighbors don’t just drop in on each other like they used to — to ask for pinking sheers or what have you. But that was before my time.

I’m still something of a newcomer after 31 years visiting a place that — social media notwithstanding — feels like a refuge from a scary, mean-spirited world and a throwback to another, more community-oriented era.