You know, every-time someone asks me why I'm not on Facebook, I really don't know what to answer, and it's only because I've never worked out the complexities of what I think of it. I think I'm getting quite close to finally figuring it out, or at least, how to properly put it into words. It's difficult because the thought is more written in machine code than in human tongue.
The answer would be three-fold. The first pertains to the privacy/social aspect of it while the second involves function, and the third is the thought of Facebook as an application.
Facebook as a Social Communication Tool.
Facebook is the hyperextension of the computer as a tool of networked communication. Coming from a background of BBSing, this whole Facebook deal is something for me that is for what today we like to call "noobs". Online communication has existed for well over 60 years, from telegraph, to telex, to fax, to BBS, to internet. Facebook, to me, is like the biggest BBS ever made. The difference between the BBS and Facebook is that the BBS focuses primarily on communicating with people that you do not know and forging relationships with them based on common interests, while Facebook is the reverse, turning your real-life forged relationships into crystalized online trophy collection. I guess we could say that it's a slower and more numbing version of MSN, as well all know that MSN communication is a dumbed down version of a full-on phone conversation with a few vowels and consonants removed.
Facebook and Social Privacy
It used to be that we had somekind of a shield, a piece of information that would be required by someone else in order to get in touch with you. The phone number is the holy grail of first contact, email being a close and impersonal second. With Facebook, all that is needed is your full name. You name is not a very hard code to crack, it requires but a little fiddling with a third wheel or acquaintance, and you're in. While you can give someone a false phone number and hope that you don't see them again, and you can simply ignore and email or play the "spam" card, Facebook makes it deafeningly obvious that you're being ignored, causing un-necessary social probing and annoying persistance. I guess Facebook makes it easier to finally say "I don't like you", and perhaps that an upshot, but I doubt that a digital revolution will bring along a more honest social scene.
Facebook as an application
Applications, by definition, have a function. Facebook does not belong to you. Nobody's gonna set up with wonderful huge playground with no hidden agenda in mind. Noobs have no concern for hidden agendas, they seem to think that spider-webs are just sticky playthings. You might want to consider how much information is made available to the operators of the system, simply by punching in your full name. Furthermore, it links your real governmentally corect name to your quirky and clever email addres. Visual, textual, and timelined information on you, is now available. Even the government, offers you proper protection like a social security number. All Facebook gives you is a password, and that's worth like.. nothing. Besides, system operators don't need a password to view your account and profile, and neither does anyone else in their food chain.
It used to be that we payed an extra fee to not be listed in the phonebook, or found comfort in knowing that there's no phone-book for cell phones. The volunteering of information is mind-blowing, and I can't help but think that the wool is being pulled over everybody's pretty face.
I think I'll stick to real-life social activities instead of regurgitating my life on the web thanks to my digital camera. They're called memories, and sometimes they're meant to fade, or to be kept alive by the presence of your friends, through warmth, heartbeat, contact, and conversations worth stimulating your brain for. Let your fingers shake hands, make eye contact, and touch bodies, not keys.
Heidegger's Panopticon is finally here in digital form, I think.
Please send a link to this blog post to anyone you think would be interested in reading:
http://bigpixels.blogspot.com/2007/10/facebook-finally-figured-out-what.html
9 comments:
I think you're missing out on a lot.
And that's coming from me, of all people.
I haven't "exchanged" with you in ages, that's why I keep telling you we need to go out and whatever for a while, but the way I see it, you're playing your elitist card and you're saying it can't be good because it's too popular.
A shovel is a shovel.. You can dig a hole, cut zombie heads, write a poem in snow. To buy it, you need to give a part of yourself. It can also be tracked and linked to your birth certificate. But it's a tool. That's all there is to it.
And again, this is why we need to have a looong discussion about it, preferably with enough to drink. So you can convince me that it's not just tinfoil-hat, anti-mass and touchy-feely arguments.
"turning your real-life forged relationships into crystalized online trophy collection"
And the Literary Prize for Astuteness goes to...
Come on Rob... from this blog, I can see on your last.fm widget that you're still listening to that orange covered Garbage album, I have access to your youtube collection, and surely with just a little from google I could find out just how many "h"s there are in your actual family name. And with your name, I could then go to Facebook and see all the pictures of you that your friends have tagged (without asking). Privacy is a thing the past, chéri. Welcome to our Orwelian world!
Marie: Not it's not, here's what happened when I clicked on your name:
Profile Not Available
The Blogger Profile you requested cannot be displayed. Many Blogger users have not yet elected to publicly share their Profile.
And while we're at it, Marie-Christine Jasmin. I'm sure you won't mind if people look you up on Facebook, right? ;)
And Slashdot.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/30/2138224
"Since last December, Facebook has grown from 12 to 47 million users"
Ouch.
There seems to be two camps:
Those who don't give a shit if friends, friends of friends, and mysterious 3rd parties who will probably have no consequence to their lives have a look at their Facebook profile (which is probably just filled with boring wall posts and silly applications anyway).
Those who haven't joined Facebook yet.
Rob, you make an informative argument (as usual) and I understand where you're coming from. I feel a little differently, though. Quite frankly, I don't care if the "government" is looking at my latest party pictures. If I look hot in them, all the better. Seriously though, I think -- at this point -- we all know that once we put something on the net, it becomes public, in one way or another. Therefore, it's our responsibility to monitor our own information. The only people who should truly be worried about joining such sites are actual criminals, but as we've seen with Kim Veer -- even with incriminating pictures on the net, no one could do anything about it.
I think, what it comes down to, is a fear of losing control. Not to mention opening oneself up to a high school-esque domain. Joining Facebook will subject you to all the gossip, criticism and public humiliation that you thought you left behind with the braces and gym uniforms. You can either embrace it and laugh along -- or not. This time around though, you have that choice.
In order to do so you have to sign up though!
:D
I would have to agree with BP here... on all 3 counts, and I'd like to add my own: the problem with Facebook is how much time people spend on it. There's no provision for how much time is too much.. it's like EverQuest or WoW. You can sit there and develop your character or page or profile or whatever and invest and invest, and then what? Print it? The earth really isn't that big a place that we have no hope of finding someone were it not for FB. I created my account, connected with everyone I've ever known, and, a few weeks ago, closed my account.
If one looks beyond the initial contact that FB offers, which does have its value, FB has this sorta been-there-done-that feel about it... at least it does for those of us who were here before the Internet as we know it. Just look at MySpace.. how cool was it at one point? I'm sure glad I didn't type up my life there.. just to have to redo all that typing on FB. I highly doubt FB will ever offer an import/export function for all the data you've ever typed in or submitted to them. Makes you want to read over their Terms of Use statement eh?
Again, you prove that you are a great writer and blow my mind with such critical thought.
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