Spring Break
Public is the new private: End the stalker accusations
by Matt Lawrence
Op-Ed | 11/11/08
Posted online at 2:24 AM EST on 11/11/08
Facebook stalking: It's something most of us have accused someone else of doing. It's also something probably most of us have done. We react with suspicion and aversion if someone we've never met comments on one of the favorite bands or books we've listed. Yet, when meeting someone new, we now almost instinctively pore over his or her Facebook page for background information and anything we can infer about the person's personality. If only one person had Facebook, and she listed her interests, favorites and activities on it and supplemented it with pictures of her traveling, partying and sitting around making silly faces, it would be clear that this person was an unbelievable narcissist with unusual exhibitionist tendencies. However, because most of us use Facebook, this no longer seems odd.
The statistics about Facebook remain, like the above paradox, familiar and astounding. It is the sixth most popular Web site in the world, says Rolling Stone. Seventy million people check it every day. Over 10,000 people are registered on the Brandeis network. For comparison, Brandeis currently has about 30,000 alumni.
There are more peculiar statistics. If you type "wasting time Facebook" into Facebook's search function, literally hundreds of group results pop up. Some of them are at least honest enough to be titled "I love wasting time on Facebook," but most of them lament Facebook's effect. Again, we are so used to these absurdities it no longer seems peculiar to us that someone would voluntarily join a Web site, then seek out or create a group for themselves and like-minded individuals who spend time on that Web site complaining about how much time they spend on the site they voluntarily joined.
The "privacy" issue is the one that fewer people seem to find absurd. It's hard to quantify this kind of thing, but it's fair to say that a healthy percentage of pictures posted on Facebook are those of people partying. These pictures aren't always of explicitly illegal activities, not that there's really any doubt as to what's in those red Solo cups. However, it's a weird direction we have taken. Many feel an impulse to make the private public: Few parties or large social events are free of at least one person who feels compelled to take pictures and put them on the Internet.
The statistics about Facebook remain, like the above paradox, familiar and astounding. It is the sixth most popular Web site in the world, says Rolling Stone. Seventy million people check it every day. Over 10,000 people are registered on the Brandeis network. For comparison, Brandeis currently has about 30,000 alumni.
There are more peculiar statistics. If you type "wasting time Facebook" into Facebook's search function, literally hundreds of group results pop up. Some of them are at least honest enough to be titled "I love wasting time on Facebook," but most of them lament Facebook's effect. Again, we are so used to these absurdities it no longer seems peculiar to us that someone would voluntarily join a Web site, then seek out or create a group for themselves and like-minded individuals who spend time on that Web site complaining about how much time they spend on the site they voluntarily joined.
The "privacy" issue is the one that fewer people seem to find absurd. It's hard to quantify this kind of thing, but it's fair to say that a healthy percentage of pictures posted on Facebook are those of people partying. These pictures aren't always of explicitly illegal activities, not that there's really any doubt as to what's in those red Solo cups. However, it's a weird direction we have taken. Many feel an impulse to make the private public: Few parties or large social events are free of at least one person who feels compelled to take pictures and put them on the Internet.
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D. Pedder
posted 11/13/08 @ 3:13 AM EST
So.... 70 million check it daily huh. That tells me there are around 70 to 80 million actual people on Facebook, not the supposedly 120 million claimed. (Continued…)
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