meditations on facebook
Jan. 27th, 2011 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaI keep thinking of things I want to post about. But I don't want to write something off-the-cuff; I want to craft a perfect essay, and as a result, I never write anything. So here is some somewhat off-the-cuff musing about Facebook.
Privacy, of course, is the first thing most people mention in connection with Facebook. I'm not bothered by using my full real name on FB, maybe because in my earliest online interaction, on Usenet, most people used their real names. Hell, I used my work email address (which alas is why it gets bucketloads of spam these days; it's been around since the Dawn of Spam.) I'm a little weirded out by people who use invented names on FB, even though it totally doesn't bother me on Dreamwidth or LJ or RWOL.
It kind of annoys me when people set their privacy controls so that nobody other than friends can see them, because even when they friend me it still doesn't allow me to see them - I have to friend them back, first. And sometimes I don't want to do that until I can see what they post, to figure out e.g. if this is the Sue Brown I knew in high school, or some other Sue Brown.
I pretty much don't do applications or let them share my information. And I use an ad-blocker. I do theoretically have to be careful of what I comment on friends' posts if they have friends I know through other venues, where I don't use my real name (la la la fandom), but I don't want them to make a connection. But I've become much less fussed about this in the past few years and I don't mind as much as I used to. (So if you are a stalker who has found this journal from my fandom persona, hi! Pull up a chair! It's okay!)
Then there is the superficiality it fosters. I see this as a feature, not a bug. As I have said before, Facebook is the perfect venue for staying in vague touch with people I only want to stay in vague touch with. I don't necessarily want a deep and meaningful relationship with high school friends, people I've met at fandom cons, other posters on the running forum I frequent, local people I don't really see frequently. I can connect with them if I want, but I don't have to.
Among my Facebook friends are, hmm. One of our County Commissioners, a candidate I backed for County Commissioner (he lost), and hee, a college roommate who just ran for County Commissioner in a county in a state 2000 miles from me. The first two I see at local political and occasional social events, the third I haven't seen since the mid-80s. Bunches of high school friends, and several people with whom I attended high school but were never friendly with me, and I'm kind of mystified that they wanted to friend me, but hey, whatever. A few couples from our sailboat cruising days. A guy who used to stalk my sailboat cruising log, who by coincidence is friends with one of my old high school friends. A guy I used to hang out with on Usenet, who by coincidence is friends with one of my running forum friends. Running forum friends I have met at races, and those I have never actually met. Usenet forum friends I have met at get-togethers, and those I have never actually met. And so on.
It's actually kind of cool. What I find myself doing with FB more and more is treating it as a sort of many-armed chat, a little slower than actual realtime chat but faster than comment replies on a journal. It's like Twitter was, when I used it, except that Twitter only showed parts of the conversation, people you followed but not the people they followed who might be responding to them (but not to you). (NB: I have two Twitter accounts, but I use neither.) I ignore topics that don't interest me (I use the Better Facebook greasemonkey script, which allows for sophisticated filtering, so I can outright kill or shunt to tabs various people and keywords, if I'm feeling overwhelmed) and I follow those that delight me.
One evening last week I complained on FB about not being able to get a fire started in my wood stove. The resulting comment thread grew to 82 comments over the course of the evening, and included sympathy, gentle derision, and good suggestions (and my reporting of negative results, alas) from a diverse audience: five running-forum friends (only one of whom I've met in person), three high school friends (two friend-friends and one person who I barely knew back then), two local people (neither of whom I have actually seen in months), and a guy I met sailing and haven't seen in years.
That's what I love about Facebook.
Privacy, of course, is the first thing most people mention in connection with Facebook. I'm not bothered by using my full real name on FB, maybe because in my earliest online interaction, on Usenet, most people used their real names. Hell, I used my work email address (which alas is why it gets bucketloads of spam these days; it's been around since the Dawn of Spam.) I'm a little weirded out by people who use invented names on FB, even though it totally doesn't bother me on Dreamwidth or LJ or RWOL.
It kind of annoys me when people set their privacy controls so that nobody other than friends can see them, because even when they friend me it still doesn't allow me to see them - I have to friend them back, first. And sometimes I don't want to do that until I can see what they post, to figure out e.g. if this is the Sue Brown I knew in high school, or some other Sue Brown.
I pretty much don't do applications or let them share my information. And I use an ad-blocker. I do theoretically have to be careful of what I comment on friends' posts if they have friends I know through other venues, where I don't use my real name (la la la fandom), but I don't want them to make a connection. But I've become much less fussed about this in the past few years and I don't mind as much as I used to. (So if you are a stalker who has found this journal from my fandom persona, hi! Pull up a chair! It's okay!)
Then there is the superficiality it fosters. I see this as a feature, not a bug. As I have said before, Facebook is the perfect venue for staying in vague touch with people I only want to stay in vague touch with. I don't necessarily want a deep and meaningful relationship with high school friends, people I've met at fandom cons, other posters on the running forum I frequent, local people I don't really see frequently. I can connect with them if I want, but I don't have to.
Among my Facebook friends are, hmm. One of our County Commissioners, a candidate I backed for County Commissioner (he lost), and hee, a college roommate who just ran for County Commissioner in a county in a state 2000 miles from me. The first two I see at local political and occasional social events, the third I haven't seen since the mid-80s. Bunches of high school friends, and several people with whom I attended high school but were never friendly with me, and I'm kind of mystified that they wanted to friend me, but hey, whatever. A few couples from our sailboat cruising days. A guy who used to stalk my sailboat cruising log, who by coincidence is friends with one of my old high school friends. A guy I used to hang out with on Usenet, who by coincidence is friends with one of my running forum friends. Running forum friends I have met at races, and those I have never actually met. Usenet forum friends I have met at get-togethers, and those I have never actually met. And so on.
It's actually kind of cool. What I find myself doing with FB more and more is treating it as a sort of many-armed chat, a little slower than actual realtime chat but faster than comment replies on a journal. It's like Twitter was, when I used it, except that Twitter only showed parts of the conversation, people you followed but not the people they followed who might be responding to them (but not to you). (NB: I have two Twitter accounts, but I use neither.) I ignore topics that don't interest me (I use the Better Facebook greasemonkey script, which allows for sophisticated filtering, so I can outright kill or shunt to tabs various people and keywords, if I'm feeling overwhelmed) and I follow those that delight me.
One evening last week I complained on FB about not being able to get a fire started in my wood stove. The resulting comment thread grew to 82 comments over the course of the evening, and included sympathy, gentle derision, and good suggestions (and my reporting of negative results, alas) from a diverse audience: five running-forum friends (only one of whom I've met in person), three high school friends (two friend-friends and one person who I barely knew back then), two local people (neither of whom I have actually seen in months), and a guy I met sailing and haven't seen in years.
That's what I love about Facebook.