I've written for a technology publication on campus how everything we post online (on Blogger, Facebook, Gchats) are now becoming part of the public domain permanently.
"Worst-case scenario in mind, students may need to think twice before uploading unflattering pictures of themselves on Facebook (or allowing others to upload such photos) or twittering about the tediousness of finance after an interview with JP Morgan. In some way or form, that information, by means of hyper-text mark-up language, might make its way to the recruiter of the company of interest.
In the world of social networking, what is considered “private” information is in many ways becoming more and more incorporated into the sphere of full public disclosure."
That said, I've recently become obsessed (motivated) about the 2009 film, "The Social Network."
This blog post will be a combination of movie review and social criticism.
The best paragraph I've read about Facebook:
“Today it seems our lives exist to be documented. With recent advances in technology creating a proliferation of recording devices, many of us, between our iPods, cell phones, cameras, and laptops, might be carrying at least two or three video and sound recorders during the day. The last decade’s expansion of the Internet has in turn given us an outlet for this constant, spontaneous documentation: we are always uploading photos to Facebook, recording vlogs on Youtube, or publicly outlining our lives by Twittering everything we do. But documentation and self-documentation in particular can be problematic: no matter how many photographs, videos, or recordings we put on our Internet profiles, and no matter how spontaneously we may blog, we can never fully recreate ourselves. In other words, in our self-documentation, we can never give others the same experience they might have meeting us in person.”
-Max McKenna, Penn undergraduate, 2008
We can never give others the same experience they might have meeting us in person.
I make a prediction here and now on this blog that may prove to be unpopular:
Facebook has reached(or will soon reach) its carrying capacity. According to Wikipedia: The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment.
Replace the phrase "a biological species" with the "social phenomenon known as Facebook."
The "environment" here is the portion of the world's population that has access to Facebook.
The "species" is the company Facebook itself.
Why do I predict and spell out decline for the social networking site in the next 25, 50 years?
Because Facebook isn't cool anymore. It isn't.
It has ads (see right);
Most of its games(Zynga, Mafia) are played by bored employees at firms that don't sufficiently engage their talents or by housewives with nothing to do but stalk their children's activity online.
Album privacy is at a high (because employers do check prospective employees' online activity).
MOST of all, it does not offer anything that reality itself does not offer.
Is Facebook fun to you anymore? Doesn't it get old seeing photos of yourself or others doing things specifically timed for the pressing of a camera button?
Facebook is making us sad and more lonely. Let's live real lives first, and simulated ones second.
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