To Facebook or Not to Facebook?

And so, it’s been nearly three months since I’ve written anything. Not a drop of a sentence, a prose, not even a haiku. This is a new world record, perhaps. I was working on a book since before I left for New York and it has been at a standstill for three months as well. With a new houseguest, quitting Prospect and the development of a brand new line, I got lost somewhere in all of the commotion. Or maybe I have lacked inspiration. Today as I sit staring blankly at the nearby construction of god only knows what, I realize I miss writing. It’s time I blew the dust off my writing shoes and exercise a little creativity.
My latest thoughts have been towards relationships, the web, social networking and how all of these tie in together. To Facebook or not to Facebook? That has been my question for a few weeks now. Social networking has officially become an extension of our everyday lives. We add people we know, we add people we’d like to get to know better. Hell, sometimes, we add complete strangers (I don’t, personally, but I know a lot of people who do). So where does the social networking of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter fit into the overall grand scheme of our personal lives? How much do we share and what does the content of what we share say about us? Just like our circle of friends in our daily offline lives, we communicate easily and openly. We don’t have to communicate our thoughts or moods with status updates or mention that we “are in a relationship with…” Secondly, how do our offline friendships compare to our online social “friendships”. Aren’t they (mostly) the same? Is it possible to share a bed with someone and not share a social networking site with them ? Does “John Doe would like to be added to your Friends” mean the same as “John Doe would like to be your friend” in real life?
Where does real life end and “social networking” begin?
For example, I know men who are in relationships, who even live with their significant other but feel uncomfortable adding them as a friend on their Facebook accounts. With social networking having evolved into the new social communication bridge of our lives, what part of your life would be of particular interest to protect by NOT adding someone that already exists in your personal life?
At one time we could all look at MySpace as “just a silly MySpace page”. But now, our lives have become integrated. Our feelings are hurt if we aren’t added, or if we are deleted. Our actions online are just as much paid attention to as our actions in our day-to-day lives offline. Our social circles at Sushi night are the same as our social circles on Facebook. We are connected and the web is an extension of ourselves, our interests, our families, our friends, our careers, our agendas, our relationships. To separate the two at this point in the game would almost be unnatural.
The way I see it, we have all evolved socially as a result of the internet. We have become an open book and it is up to us to determine how much of ourselves we care to broadcast to the world. Unfortunately, you can’t always set the limitations on this (i.e. bloggers, photo and notes tagging, unknown changes in privacy settings, stealing of photos, etc.)
There are no more hiding places on the web, unless we just choose not to participate. Privacy? What privacy? Privacy is a thing of the past. Privacy is pulling the curtains shut on your window, that’s it. Nowadays, it isn’t so much a matter of privacy as it is accountability. In other words, don’t do it if you don’t want everyone to find out about it. Personally, I find a lot of this refreshing. I feel as though it’s a more honest approach to internet communication. Socially, we are no longer hiding behind an avatar in a chat room, being anyone we desire. Now, we have linked email addresses that make it easy for us to be found and for others to vouch for us. I guess if you have hang-ups about sharing your personal life, stay away from social networking sites altogether.