A cautionary tale.

Anyone who has ever spent any amount of time with me knows this: I do not care for Facebook.

Be it over coffee, lunch, soccer or even a block party, I will make my views on this undeniably clear. My kids know this. I am officially the meanest mom on the planet because of it, too. The trophy should arrive any day now.

I do not care for Facebook. Or anything of its ilk. Why am I on this again? I'll tell you why:

Facebook makes it far too easy for us to vomit up information in short order and make it available to a huge audience, without the benefit of some form of human interaction that might lead us to question the content or at least process the effect said content might have on other people. Even if our intentions are nothing but good.

(God, that was exhausting.)

(And, yes, I do feel a little better.)

People do not know how to use it. Including me. At the urging of several, very supportive friends, I set up a Facebook page to promote WHOSS. And then I looked at it and wondered to myself (or perhaps aloud, because I do that a lot), "What now?" I wasn't about to tell anyone what I was doing at that moment, or post any personal information. So, really, what was the point of it all?

I still don't know. It's out there. I think. I deactivated and reactivated it so many times that I can't recall its current status.

To put a positive spin on it (I'm in marketing, after all), one could say that there is no wrong way to use Facebook. (Although the woman who inadvertantly and quite explicitly used her "wall" to sing the praises of a recent paramour's prowess might disagree. Pretty sure the paramour wouldn't, though. Pretty sure he's strutting around, pointing toward the ether and saying, "Scoreboard!")

The corollary to this, of course, is that there is also no right way to use it. Even with the very best of intentions, things can go horribly awry. I'm speaking of something much more serious than a gaffe like the one mentioned above.

We all know the proclivity of teenage girls to react to and spread information. Last night I was in a carpool with five teenage girls who witnessed first-hand the unfortunate consequences this can bring. Without compromising anyone's privacy, I will try to sum it up.

Someone had posted a bit of sensitive information on Facebook. She owned the information; it was about her. She did nothing wrong. But not everyone in her family had received the news before she posted it. And when her Facebook friends saw the update, they began calling her sister. It was sad news, and they were calling to express their support and love. They did nothing wrong.

Everyone's intentions were honorable and understandable. But the effect on my dear, young friend, who is like another daughter to me...was devastating. I was there when she started receiving those calls. She was blindsided.

Is this really Facebook's fault? Of course not. Facebook is an inanimate collection of code that sits on a server (okay many, many servers--who cares) and does whatever its users tell it to do. But if there were no Facebook, I can't help but think this story might have run a smoother course. And then my friend would have been spared at least a little bit of pain.

I do not care for Facebook. 

Comments

[S. Rae]

A counterpoint: The key line is "But not everyone in her family had received the news before she posted it. . . ." because SHE posted it. To have privacy, one must be private.

I am not a social networker on- or off-line. But as an Everett family member, a person from a tiny Kansas town, and someone who lives faraway, FB has proven invaluable for me and a cousin who are planning a family gathering. Thus, we have been able easily to contact our family through FB to share details of summer's upcoming reunion. Any media can be for good or for bad or for anything in between--that's the free-will thing, just like every other choice we each choose to make.