So recently Facebook unveiled their vanity URLs and I got the default for my name (so feel free to send me a friend request if you’re so inclined). The thing that surprised me was how enthralled I was in the process of getting that vanity URL. The suspense was spectacular! I closed down other applications – especially anything sucking bandwidth – determined not to jinx my efforts by having applications crash on me or my connection mysteriously evaporating. The whole thing reminded me of my eBay addiction. The constant refreshing as the countdown got smaller and smaller, the hope that at the end of the process you would be the champion. (Sometimes I would get so competitive in the throes of an eBay auction that I found myself bidding for things I didn’t particularly want just to see if I could get them or at least make the final purchase more expensive for my opponent. Online auctions don’t necessarily bring out the best in me.)
But here’s the thing… I don’t really use or like Facebook. I have an account because um… I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. I guess because people who don’t really use webservices use Facebook and you never really know who will come out of the woodwork. I just find Facebook really quite insular. People [*cough* @silkcharm *cough*] sort of instilled this great fear within me that I should keep Facebook a closed system with the greatest privacy settings available to me. So I did. Infact at one point the security was so intense my own Facebook friends couldn’t leave messages on my wall. That seemed kind of pointless. I like the idea of a private ecosystem just between me and my nearest and dearest, but when it comes to online privacy I am acutely aware that anything I share anywhere is only a screen capture (or download) away from being shared with the world. So I personally just start with the understanding that I don’t put anything online unless I am content with the world seeing it.
And actually the vague curiosity that keeps my Facebook account open (the uncertainty of who is online, vying in the shadows) is sort of the same thing that breeds my mistrust in the web service. The way that person from high school who barely had anything to say to you ten years ago adds you as a ‘friend’ and still has nothing much to say to you. There is something about Facebook that breeds nostalgia that may have never existed in the first place. I don’t know if it is just a desire to populate your friends list or the romance of rediscovering something (someone) who was lost to you or just a forgetfulness or revisionist streak that comes with age.
The good news though is that Facebook is not high school. There is no obvious reason to keep up pretenses. If you don’t want to associate with someone simply do not accept their friend request. (Though I did look at one person’s friend request for months before I decided to deny it.) And every now and then Facebook does something truly wonderful like suggesting a friend ‘you may know’ who is actually someone you know and wish to reconnect with. This happened to me just this morning.
What’s your Facebook experience been like?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
John, I completely agree with you on this one. I am not a fan of Facebook and really don’t see the point. The only reason I have an account is because I want to keep in touch with my family, who don’t seem to be able to visit YouTube or my blog site on their own to see what I’m doing. By posting links on Facebook, they read and respond. They also tend to comment on “wall posts” but are unwilling to sign up for Twitter.
I find it very interesting…
I quite liked the platform when it was fundamentally based around real life events and photos, along with the tagging system which was probably what allowed facebook to push ahead of myspace, and small stories that my friends had actually written themselves (I suppose twitter has risen up to take the place of what facebook used to be before the applications). But now that users’ attention (and therefore my newsfeed) has been hijacked by narcissistic quizzes and other shitty meaningless applications, there’s no practical way of keeping track of those parts of the platform that actually interest me. I’ve done my best, including tweaking the newsfeed settings and implementing greasemonkey scripts, but it’s just not the same and doesn’t hold nearly the same interest for me any more, despite the fact that many more people I know are using it now.
Don’t blame me you horror!
Actually we move through a lifecycle online. Initially lurkers, then tentative (aware of privacy, maybe not revealing our real name, or being careful of photographs, showing our address etc) then we give up – reveal everything. Sort of like, “cat’s out of the bag, too hard to control everything”.
I kept my real name hidden for around 10 years on the ‘net. I’m a slow learner.