Comments
The sad age of Facebook
It occurred to me over the weekend, that we have reached a new age in socialising.
I think everyone else figured it out a while ago, but I’m always a little slow off the mark.
Facebook drastically changes the way we meet and greet, and removes a lot of subtly from every sort of relationship. There used to be a certain mystery in meeting someone new. You’d slowly get to know them, you’d build a friendship over time. Now you can access their entire life history (post the invention of Facebook) in one click. You can decide instantly if you like what you see. We all, somewhat agreeably lose our privacy AND our ability to be a blank canvas for new people.
If I look back at my Facebook, it is a weird reminder of stages in my life that are now in the past. It seems weird to delete them out but unfortunate for anyone else to have to witness them when they hardly know me. It also serves as a reminder of changing friendships, of those lost and gained and of the ability for just about anyone to find out just about anything about you.
I imagine people get hurt a fair bit on Facebook. I’ve heard of people obsessing over updated photo albums of past partners. It is awful to see just how quickly some people move on and given that we are notoriously curious as a species, it is very difficult to not wind up checking profiles that you should simply ignore for a while.
Facebook has no real purpose. “online networking” when it comes to friendships is invariably about trying to collect friends and make non-friends jealous. It enables you to make statements about yourself. “I am happy”, “I have a very busy and exciting life”, and the painful ones like “I don’t want to be your friend”. Yes, on the surface it’s far more simple and fun, but humans just aren’t emotionally sophisticated enough to access tools like these without misusing them.
I think I was heading there anyway, but think that for now, Facebook for me, will simply be a database of people I know and want to keep contact details of. I don’t think I want any more of my life on there and I’m not sure if I want access to anyone else’s life either. I know at least one person who will have a good laugh at my weird worries about privacy, given how much I blabber on about myself here for all the world to see. However, I think that it’s about time we all take a good look at the hows and whys applications like Facebook are so wildly popular and if we really want to be using them.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
December 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Nice, and dont forget how interesting it gets once staff party phots get posted and tagged. I wonder if this is going to change the way compaines evaluate people for jobs ?
December 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I think it already does… I’ve heard a few people who are about to create profiles on these apps targeted at prospective employers.
And of course… i wouldn’t hire anyone with less than 200 friends, I don’t want losers working with me ;)
December 1st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I, on the other hand, being a member of the boring old fart network, wouldn’t want someone who was so obviously spending so much time on Facebook. Unless they’re hot. (Kidding! Twice!)
December 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
What is it illegal to hire based on looks? If we ever employ a male, that will be the top requirement on our list.
Off to read NZ employment law ;)
December 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Dammit! I’m 12 friends short of being hired by Nat. Oh wait…… :P
December 1st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
12 short? Ha. I’m 120 short.
But then I use it for people I actually know, not a contacts list.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I, also, am tragically late to the social networking party and have recently been trying to get my head around facebook and what it is actually for. But I think it’s a good thing. I’m trying to be better with staying in contact with the fringes of my social life: old friends from school; people now living in the USA etc – and the successful users seem to be using it as a less formal blog; something akin to twitter; and a replacement for the bi-monthly carpet bombing of digital pictures to half your address book.
I have no real need to collect friends to win some kind of ego war, but do have a reasonable number of people that I’d just like to know how they’re doing … y’know. As for privacy concerns, well, Facebook is a privately held company – if you don’t want something about you to possibly become public at some point, you’d better not tell them.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Hi David,
Yeah I reckon you’re on the right track there… It’s been cool catching up with people who I would otherwise fall out of contact with.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I do actually know almost all of my friends on facebook – most are old buddies from primary/intermediate/high school and ex/current colleagues. For me it is very much a social tool, if I want to create a list of contacts that I don’t want seeing me dressed up for halloween and making a dick out of myself, I’ll add them on LinkedIn.
The ones that I haven’t met in person are mostly online friends that are a part of my gaming guild (with the exeption of Helen Clark). I see/chat to them at least weekly, and have done for the past 2-3 years. For these friends in particular it adds a touch of reality to the relationship – being able to see what they are getting up to outside of shooting/slashing/poking/casting arrows/swords/daggers/spells at their virtual enemies. It gives me that little bit of extra assurance that they are who they say they are, and being able to check out each others drunken party pictures from opposite sides of the world and then laugh about it together online is great. ;)
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:08 am
I agree with this and what you said at the Vista luncheon. For me, Facebook is just a repository of my Twitter tweets, which in turn are merely my blogs’ headlines broadcast to my Twitter account via Twitterfeed. I don’t need to go in, yet people think I am active there because they see the updates. Using technology I can just look like I am everywhere. The up side is doing the odd school reunion, but to live one’s life on Facebook—as TV3 recently showed in a segment—is essentially taking pleasure in a surface friendship without the substance.
Never mind that I crossed the 1,000-friend mark today, that’s another matter.