OK, so a few posts ago, I was questioning the level of connectivity required for the social DBA to be considered “involved” in the community, and I took a mild swipe at Facebook. Obviously, I now have to eat my words; I got connected to Facebook over the weekend, and I can begin to understand the addiction. I find myself checking every few hours or so to see if any one new has become my friend, or to see if any of my current friends have anything witty to say (or better yet, any old pictures to post).
Anyway, after a few days on Facebook, I have some observations (which I’ll cover over a few posts):
First, Worlds collide, and you better be ready. Goffman had a sociological theory commonly known as the Face and Mask. His principal thesis was that face is a mask that changes depending on the audience and the social interaction. In other words, we manifest a different persona around different audiences; you don’t act the same way around your boss as you do your best friend, do you (well, some of you might)?
With facebook, there is no distinction between friends; I’m friends with people from high school, college, a couple of jobs ago, and my current job. I’ve changed over the years, and I’m not always certain that I want my friends of today exposed to the hijinks of the past, yet, there’s no stopping it. The 17-year-old me collides with the 21-year-old me, the 30 year-old-me, and the near-40 me.
Furthermore, your own devilish past may not haunt you much, but Facebook also makes it too easy to introduce your friends from different worlds (“Pastor, I’d like you to meet Bob; Bob was my roommate in college, and he currently films adult movies.”). If I comment on a picture from 20 years ago, it’s very easy for anybody I know to read that comment, and trace it to anyone else involved now.
This is not necessarily a bad thing; life is about chance encounters, and it’s fun to see how things get sewn up into a spider’s web of interconnectedness. Just be prepared to run naked on Facebook; there are no masks to hide behind.
I plan on adding more thoughts to this later, but figured the image of naked Facebookers was enough to leave you hanging; Part 2 to follow.
