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What is it about today’s culture that the statement “I defriended [name] on Facebook” has more of an impact than “[Name] and I aren’t friends anymore”?

Is it because simply saying that two people are not friends isn’t enough anymore and that “proof” must be provided to validate the statement? Or is it because Facebook has permeated our lives so much that unless social and romantic developments in one’s personal lives are documented on the website, they aren’t “official”?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Dear Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg/The Facebook Powers That Be,

I can see straight through your PR spin of “building the social web together” when the new Facebook platform was announced. I don’t need new ways for my online experience to be personalized, because essentially that’s just another tool to divulge more personal information about me and my dis/likes for everyone to see across the World Wide Web. I don’t even bother reading the stuff that my friends choose to “Like” on Facebook because more often than not it’s stupid stuff like “Why do I even miss you?” or “If you ask me to hold your drink, I will drink it”¹. So why would I want to be privy to this kind of stuff all across the web? Do I really have to know what specific type of Levi’s jeans my friend chose to “like” on the Levi’s website? No, not really. If I really wanted to know, I could just, you know, do it the old school way and ask him or her instead.

I already have enough qualms about how addicted to Facebook my generation has become over the last few years and how much Facebook has permeated society and created various societal norms that are continually reinforced². This is especially disconcerting when considering that much of Facebook’s recent changes to the platform eliminates previously established privacy settings. Despite Facebook’s claims to the contrary, Facebook is more public now than it ever was before and users need to check through each and every single setting under the “Privacy” tab of their account to make sure they’re not sharing private information with strangers.

I also have a problem with how this new “Instant Personalization Pilot Program” and how all users are automatically opted into sharing personal public information with third party websites such as Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora and Yelp. Sure, public information is fair game, but when your relatively recent privacy changes affected which personal information became public, a lot of users are going to end up sharing information they thought was private. Even if I uncheck the box that says “Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites” I’m told that my friends that participate in this personalization program can still share my public information. So then I have to individually block the applications for the third party websites involved in the personalization program to ensure that my personal information remains, well, personal. Even then I’m not sure I’ve wholly prevented third party websites from accessing my information.

I’m not the only one that thinks the new platform and the personalization program sucks. While I don’t realistically think Senators asking Facebook to reconsider the way they divulge user information to third party websites is going to do anything, it’s definitely a sign that something is amiss when it comes to Facebook’s new features.

1. Both of these are taken directly from what’s currently on my news feed. I’m not making this stuff up. [↩]
2. Wow, my professor was totally right when she said the theories and communication models we studied this semester would be relevant in every day life. Props to her. [↩]

Almost everyone who has a Facebook account has heard of the Farmville application. Essentially, it’s a virtual farm where Facebook users can grow crops, tend to animals, and build a farm. You can visit your friends’ farms and watch your own farm slowly change from a pathetic-looking plot of grass to an expansive, thriving farm.

Personally, I don’t play Farmville, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious about this game that over half of my friends are crazy about. There has been a lot of debate in my group of friends about the merits of Farmville, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in this world: people that Farmville, and people that don’t. There is just no other explanation for this intense, obsessive Facebook app. It’s kind of like the Jetman craze two years ago, which makes me wonder what up and coming app will be the next big thing!

Question of the Week: Do you Farmville?