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Facebook: stop telling me how to be a better friend
Back in the days when the Internet was young, and Web 2.0 had yet to be named (I still don't get that one, anyway -- it's the same Internet, ya know?), there was a lot of hemming and hawing among local news anchors and Parents with Children and people like that about what effect The Internet was going to have on the Socialization of Our Youth. They were worried that kids who spent too much time online "instead of socializing" were going to end up all developmentally stunted and socially malformed.
Of course, that didn't actually happen. The latest consensus, according to my magpie selection of internet psychology articles, is that social interaction on the internet shares a lot of the same qualities as social interaction in meatspace; although, at least one of them claimed, it can intensify existing tendencies by making social butterflies even more social (e.g. spending all their time on facebook) while allowing loners to further isolate themselves. I've no idea if this is true, but it makes sense to me. And me? I have social anxieties -- so the internet is just a whole new realm to be socially anxious about.
Facebook is the worst of all for this. It was always going to be, but when it first started it wasn't substantially different from, say, MySpace or Friendster. Same weird politics of "adding people", but nothing particularly new. Then it started adding features. Most of these are just annoying gadgets, and I won't go into how irritating they are, simply because the topic has been discussed at length, many times, and often offline. It takes up too much thought as it is. Two of the newer features really bug me, though.
The first is actually pretty old now, I guess, in internet terms. It's that little box of "people you may know", that shows you friends-of-friends on the off chance that you may know them, and decide to add them as a friend. It's actually pretty useful, and a good feature if the whole world were happy and everyone loved each other and no one built up crazy anxieties in their heads, but for me it is often troublesome. Because I keep seeing people in that box that I know I used to be face-friends with (and, in some cases, actual friends). But people grow apart, and some people actually take facebook seriously and only want to have their actual, current friends on their friends-lists, and that's okay. I guess. I mean, it's the same politics of de-friending and whatnot that existed before facebook -- only now, instead of finding out incidentally when you go to look for them and find that they're not on your list (which, if you have genuinely grown apart, you'd probably never do), you have a good chance of having it shoved in your face as soon as you open the home page.
Now, that box isn't even called "people you may know" anymore. It's been helpfully re-labelled "Suggestions", and displays one person you might want to 'friend', and another with whom you are already face-friends. This is where it gets creepy. Beside the picture of the person you already know, it suggests that you use some face-features to interact with them. Maybe I only find this particularly creepy because the first time it did that to me, it was to show me the face of a middle-school crush, with the message "Reconnect with him. Write on his wall." Um, excuse me? But that wasn't even the worst of it. It's also started to take it upon itself to remind me when I haven't spoken to someone on facebook recently, again inviting me to write on their wall. It's all fine and ignorable if it's some random acquaintance, but when it's actually a close friend (or, in the case that spurred this rant, my cousin), who I feel I actually ought to be talking to more than I do, I just feel like I'm being judged by robots. Robots that can just fuck off now, thanks.
ETA: Thank you, XKCD.
Of course, that didn't actually happen. The latest consensus, according to my magpie selection of internet psychology articles, is that social interaction on the internet shares a lot of the same qualities as social interaction in meatspace; although, at least one of them claimed, it can intensify existing tendencies by making social butterflies even more social (e.g. spending all their time on facebook) while allowing loners to further isolate themselves. I've no idea if this is true, but it makes sense to me. And me? I have social anxieties -- so the internet is just a whole new realm to be socially anxious about.
Facebook is the worst of all for this. It was always going to be, but when it first started it wasn't substantially different from, say, MySpace or Friendster. Same weird politics of "adding people", but nothing particularly new. Then it started adding features. Most of these are just annoying gadgets, and I won't go into how irritating they are, simply because the topic has been discussed at length, many times, and often offline. It takes up too much thought as it is. Two of the newer features really bug me, though.
The first is actually pretty old now, I guess, in internet terms. It's that little box of "people you may know", that shows you friends-of-friends on the off chance that you may know them, and decide to add them as a friend. It's actually pretty useful, and a good feature if the whole world were happy and everyone loved each other and no one built up crazy anxieties in their heads, but for me it is often troublesome. Because I keep seeing people in that box that I know I used to be face-friends with (and, in some cases, actual friends). But people grow apart, and some people actually take facebook seriously and only want to have their actual, current friends on their friends-lists, and that's okay. I guess. I mean, it's the same politics of de-friending and whatnot that existed before facebook -- only now, instead of finding out incidentally when you go to look for them and find that they're not on your list (which, if you have genuinely grown apart, you'd probably never do), you have a good chance of having it shoved in your face as soon as you open the home page.
Now, that box isn't even called "people you may know" anymore. It's been helpfully re-labelled "Suggestions", and displays one person you might want to 'friend', and another with whom you are already face-friends. This is where it gets creepy. Beside the picture of the person you already know, it suggests that you use some face-features to interact with them. Maybe I only find this particularly creepy because the first time it did that to me, it was to show me the face of a middle-school crush, with the message "Reconnect with him. Write on his wall." Um, excuse me? But that wasn't even the worst of it. It's also started to take it upon itself to remind me when I haven't spoken to someone on facebook recently, again inviting me to write on their wall. It's all fine and ignorable if it's some random acquaintance, but when it's actually a close friend (or, in the case that spurred this rant, my cousin), who I feel I actually ought to be talking to more than I do, I just feel like I'm being judged by robots. Robots that can just fuck off now, thanks.
ETA: Thank you, XKCD.
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My aged mind reels (briefly) at the thought.
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At least it's stopped trying to get me to friend my neighbor's aunt. No, thank you, Facebook. I don't need Aunt Claire to be all up in my business.
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