I don’t use Facebook very often because my wife takes care of most of my social going-ons. A trend she has noticed lately is that a lot of her friends are masking their real names, like using their middle names instead of their last names. Why? Because they are afraid that the wrong type of people will find them.
When companies use Facebook to vet candidates, and parents make friends with their teenage children, does Facebook permissioning need a re-think?
More and more people are seriously taking a look at what they are putting out on the internet. Those drunken photos of your last party could come back to bit you. If you think about it though, this was Facebook’s bread and butter since they started, and like I’ve said before, Facebook is a gossip site. What happens when all the juicy stuff goes somewhere else?
Facebook is awesome for teens, and I’m sure we all wish we had it instead of ICQ when we were younger
(anybody who calls facebook has to be > 22 years old) I even remember my old ICQ number!
So what happens when you hit adulthood? (again times of changed, this is now > 22) We need a revolution! Kurt Jarchow you will be our Stalin/Franco … errr our Putin/Obama/Shai Agassi!
We need an Industrial (not a Social) portal, a place where we (…the people of mother internet) can interact with other industrious people (..of mother internet) to improve our efficiency without drunk pictures, gossip, and identity!
Comment by OldManIn2D — February 17, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
that should read ‘calls facebook a social website’
Comment by OldManIn2D — February 17, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
The real problem with Facebook and various other social networking tools is that they are all inredibly short-term in their logic and they romanticize the ability to share your existance with others in an unhealthy way.
We’ve created a society that craves more gossip, yearns for more acceptance and begs for more understanding/acknowledgement for even the most mundane things than ever before. The kicker is that we as a society scream for more attention than ever before, and do it by locking ourselves away in our offices and bedrooms, posting ridiculously inappropriate videos, messages and pictures when the simpliest answer – to go outside and interact with people – complete eludes us.
We’re not any busier than we were ten years ago. We think we are but in reality we just as a society have decided that it’s better for people to know everything about you, before they’ve actually met you.
Crazy.
Comment by FortunateSon — February 17, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
@FortunateSon: Well no I’d disagree, studies show social networks enable more social interaction than it represses.
I love the idea of sharing, but I’ll agree that a need for attention is an unhealthy thing. Reaching out to strangers though is great!
Comment by jarchowk — February 17, 2009 @ 9:46 pm