In 2006, a university fellow I was working with, Dani, introduced me to Facebook. She gave me her username and password so I could play with it, because at that time of course only schools were part of the network.
I was awed by its relevance combined with its irreverence.
Dani had over a thousand friends and they all went on exotic spring breaks, played drinking games, talked as little as possible about studying, and started up groups called, like, "I go out of my way to step on that extra crunchy leaf." Hey...ME TOO! Now that was a group I wanted to join. It's still an active group. (Except I don't really know where groups are now.)
I couldn't join because it was only 2006. Waaaaah.
Dani told me about meeting a boy at the gym's check-in desk and then, from the treadmill, observing him looking up her Facebook profile before deciding to friend her.
WHAT?! I thought that was ludicrous. Then when I signed on I started to do the same thing, but, not really with a boy at the gym's check-in desk. I don't go to a gym.
The day that non-school-affliated-people could join Facebook, I jumped in. I built up a network of 27 people, I started groups, I started promoting the nonprofits I worked. I searched for connections, I made new friends. I still have some of these new "friends," people I've never met, but with whom I've interacted over common interests.
I'm still a member of goofy groups like "Ball Talk" which is, well, exactly what you think it is. Built in a response to "The Vagina Monologues." Look for it, it's private, and if you want to join send the admin a request because it's hilarious, at least in our own sick minds.
But now I have a problem. I'm starting to hate Facebook. Or as Dani would say, "haaaaaaaaate it."
I've stopped looking for "friends." I only have 300. If someone friends me, well, I have to analyze, "Which photos do I want this person to see? Which list do I put her in? Does he get full profile or limited profile? How exactly do I know this person? I didn't even like working with her, and now she wants to friend me?"
It never used to be this way in 2007.
I saw the Chevy Cruze commercial where the driver activates some wizardry that reads aloud his Facebook newsfeed that confirmed the date he just had really was great. My mouth dropped open.
Why the hell would I want that?
There's this one girl who I was friends with in high school, not close friends. I know her whole freaking life now. I know her cute dog's name, what book she's reading, how her shoulder is healing from that injury and how flippin' fantastic her husband is. Why would I want my car telling me more about Sherry? I haven't seen her in 25 years. While I'm driving? But I don't want to ditch Sherry or even hide her. And there are several Sherrys, acquaintances. I like them, I wish them well, and, if I saw them in person I'd give them a big hello, but, I don't want to hear all about their lives while I'm driving.
While I'm driving is when I want to keep my own life straight in my head.
But maybe, maybe if it could read my Twitter feed to me... now that's a different story. That wouldn't annoy me.
Enough about the car.
I don't know what I want Facebook to be now. I can't not be on it. There are people who contact me only through Facebook. There are favorite small businesses and organizations who publish their news mostly on Facebook. And BEJEWELED. The hooks are in.
Five years ago I was awed by the boundless possibilities of Facebook.
Now I just want there to be boundaries.
That's kind of a funny statement since I'm a blogger. But I do have boundaries. I'm semi-private, I would never say most of what I say here if I attached it to my last name, if I were Googleable. I would never connect it to Facebook. So I try to maintain those boundaries, but they're just going to keep moving and eventually fall away. That day is getting closer and closer.
Either Zuckerberg is right about the age of privacy being over, or my dad is right about Facebook being a fad that will go away. What do you think?
Ethan's right and Dick is wrong.
Fad = flash in the pan. Facebook = 600 million users. That ain't no flash!
Posted by: Tom Guarriello | 08 February 2011 at 05:08 PM
I'll take the opposite POV from Tom. I think the Facebook backlash has started and Facebook will eventually go away... despite the huge numbers. More frequently, the people I talk about this with have either closed their account or they still have it but it sits idle.
We've already seen it happen to MySpace. They hit 100M accounts in 2006. Recently, they let go of half the company and they're floundering.
(BTW: I closed my FB account a few months ago and I don't miss it. Try some time away from it and see...)
Posted by: Jeff | 08 February 2011 at 05:29 PM
I know I'm in the minority but I think no good can come of Facebook. (I am not anti-technology, FWIW. Just very pro-privacy.)
And the people who announce their every move via Facebook, Twitter, and 4 Square? Idiots. Even worse are the mommy bloggers who put pictures of their kids up with every detail about their poop, disabilities, struggles, etc. They post entire photo albums and share the kids' first and last names. The kids don't have a say. Maybe they don't want future friends or employers knowing they struggled with autism-spectrum issues or that they pissed the bed until the age of 10.
I want to ask Amalah if she's ever asked Noah if it's OK that she shares every detail of his life with her 50,000+ readers. She even posted a videotape of one of his sensory freakouts (he was wearing PJ's on his own couch and it was very sad to see) . . . maybe she justifies it because she's "helping" other people but at your own child's expense?
Sorry, went off topic a bit.
Posted by: lg | 08 February 2011 at 08:32 PM
I think Facebook and other social media are a great way to bring some disorders out into the open, make people understand what they are, and fear it less.
Parents can ruin us in lots of ways besides Facebook.
Facebook is as popular as it is because we've made it that way. We created that monster. Because as much as we don't want to know about everyone else we do. It's just human nature.
If someone doesn't like it, they can avoid it. Most people, when requested, will leave off tags of friends who don't want to be mentioned. They'll leave them out of pictures altogether.
Posted by: Lyndsy | 08 February 2011 at 11:38 PM
Facebook might be the biggest of the social media sites, but it isn't alone. Even if Facebook went away, something else would rise up in its place. Online privacy, guaranteed by companies, is nearly gone already. It is up to individual users to police their own privacy now. The shift has already happened. The only people left arguing about it are the technology dinosaurs.
Posted by: Peeved Michelle | 09 February 2011 at 01:49 PM
Interesting array of views.
The essence of my post is, I like where I've been with Facebook, but I don't know what I want Facebook to do for me right now. I want it to not annoy me.
Which means I want the people and organizations I have chosen to connect with to be not annoying, en masse. I have chosen to become annoyed but I didn't anticipate being annoyed when I chose.
I think using Facebook is just too much intimacy and too much maintenance for me now.
Oh this doesn't keep me from joining new things, I'm not against social networking just Facebook right now...anyone using Crowdrise?
Posted by: blaugra | 09 February 2011 at 06:23 PM
As I read this I knew Tom would be the first to comment.
I like to check FB, but some people really piss me off and I have to just ignore or go all drastic and hide/de-friend/whatever it is called. Then I wonder if they are still spouting drivel...
Dooce cut back on her posts and pictures about her older daughter, but today's was quite awesome - Newsletter: Month Eighty-Four in a totally gushy mommy way. I would be sad if some of these folks would stop sharing so much. It would be like losing a friend in some odd 2011 way.
But, like Jeff I do like to detach from all technologica at times. Digging Grooveshark now to catch up on all the music I can't listen to in front of the kids (not that they already don't know all the good swears from yours truly already...)
Posted by: Kristin | 09 February 2011 at 07:26 PM
I agree re: Dooce. She is the one Mommy blogger who "gets it". She was like, "all babies poop and sleep and cry, so no biggie sharing those details." Once her oldest got to a certain age, she really curtailed any major details and made it clear why she was doing so. Kudos to her. Though the thought of pics of my girls out there like that really skeeves me out but clearly everyone has different comfort levels. She makes her living off living her life online so it works for her.
And I also read the newsletter to Leta. So touching! I was sobbing. As much as I "stalk" Dooce and Amalah and various other so-called mommy bloggers, if they were to stop or I would curtail my own stalking, I guess I would be forced to find real-life mommy friends. The horrors!
Posted by: lg | 09 February 2011 at 08:02 PM
Friends made online are real-life friends, I'm not seeing any distinction between the channels used to make friends anymore.
LG, these women want you so don't consider yourself stalking unless you're like googlemapping their neighborhoods that is. :)
I'd be nervous posting some things about family too. Hell, I even get Salty's approval sometimes before I post something he said.
Posted by: blaugra | 10 February 2011 at 07:08 AM
I've gotten a lot more disenchanted with FB lately. I am sometimes stunned as to what people write on there about their very personal issues. I don't want to know your husband cheated on you. I believe there are some things that need to be kept to one's private world, not that of the Internet. I value my privacy, and being a military wife, I choose to keep a lot of stuff private, because as a very young wife, the rules of operational security were drilled into my head very clearly.
Too many wives put things on FB that could endanger her husband, my husband, and hundreds and thousands of others, just to get a little sympathy. One wife found out via chat on FB that her husband had been killed overseas.
I believe it's all in the way you choose to utilize FB. I like being back in touch with a lot of high school friends, old co-workers and especially family I haven't seen in years because Uncle Sam sent us over 1,000 miles away almost 15 years ago. It's a good way to keep in touch, and that's why I continue to have my account.
Posted by: Erin | 16 February 2011 at 03:54 PM
I can not think of a worse way to endanger someone's life or find out they've been killed than through Facebook. Holy crap.
I have FB chat turned off, and I don't get any email notifications from it. Facebook is something I go into and keep separate from other places, that's the only way I can keep it sane.
Posted by: blaugra | 17 February 2011 at 12:34 PM