Monday, August 17, 2009

Facebook: The Un-Great Equalizer

I figured out what my problem is with Facebook. (Other than that most of it is just inane.) In Facebookland everyone is a 'friend' and we're all very friendly doing friendly things. My problem is that I don't have or want that same relationship with everyone in my life. I move through different worlds. There is the work world, the Marine Corps world, the church world, the writing world, and the friends & family world. They all require different sides of me and they are not interchangeable. Shoot, even my friends and family have different relationships with me; my children are different in status than my parents, etc. There are things that I do and ways that I act that my boss and my commanding officer do not need to see. There are exchanges between friends that my Marines and my employees do not need to see. We are not all equal.

Of course, you say, just limit the friends you have on Facebook. What's the problem? OK, you turn down your boss's friend request three times and see what happens next evaluation season. Teh internets are changing our society in ways that aren't fully understood yet and I'm not so sure I like the change.

4 comments:

Kameron said...

Yeah, I try not to publicize my Facebook profile because I want that to be on as much of a personal level as possible. I created an Author page that I use to promote my writing. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop people from searching for me and sending "Friend" requests.

Jeff Draper said...

Right, call me a curmudgeon but I have enough friends in real life, I don't need a bunch of pseudo-friends that come and go as they please.

Rogue Blades Entertainment said...

Depends, I guess, upon what your purpose in even having the FB page is. I think the FB Group has been a failure, and the FB Page had potential until they combined Pages with Profiles so that what was once separate in my case became one.

Since then I've simply utilized FB in conjunction with Twitter and cross postings from the RBE website all in the name of generating more places and search results for RBE. I don't do personal, non-RBE stuff on the RBE site or RBE Twitter, but I do do everything on my FB. Except games. I'll do quizzes, but no games. Don't have the time in all honesty.

Interesting article though Jeff. Without realizing it, I've missed your posts and observations. Ready to read Roar of the Crowd subs this December? :)

Jeff Draper said...

VD- I am a slush killing monster!