Yesterday someone I knew roughly fifteen years ago wrote to me via Facebook. She asked me if I were dying because she had noticed my status updates on Facebook (and quite possibly this blog) and was, I quote, sooo worried about me!!!!!!!!!
One thing which absolutely fascinates me about blogging and, by extension, social networking on the web, is the idea that you “know” the blogger or the person you follow on a social website. Where does that idea of “knowledge” comes from?
I don’t know about you, but I moderate my online persona and I have done so ever since I first started blogging almost eight years ago. I used to be almost obsessively private about my identity, but when one of my blog readers began stalking me obsessively in my then-hometown, I realised that anybody would be able to find out who I was no matter how hard I tried to mask my identity. It was just a matter of how net-savvy you were. These days I link my real name to this blog and use a somewhat transparent web ‘handle’. I continue to be very aware what I share online.
Do you know me if you read this blog? Of course not, although you will have a good idea of what to expect if we were to have a conversation offline. Can you deduce anything significant from my Facebook-updates? Quite apart from my having a semi-severe PathWords obsession, no.
I’m slightly amazed that anybody would consider asking me about dying via a casual Facebook message or think I would disclose terminal illness via one-sentence updates on a silly social networking site. I think this proves the divide between illusory ‘knowledge’ generated by virtual interaction and actual knowledge of the person writing all of this.
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I was chatting with a colleague the other day about mobile phones; he was saying that if he texts his daughter, and she doesn’t respond within a reasonable period of time then he starts to worry. Contrast that with when *I* was a student where your parents could call the hall of residence phone and leave a message with a fellow student (if they were lucky) - otherwise they would have to wait until I remembered to call them; usually a couple of times a term.
Same with social networking sites - Twitter has a nudge function, for chrissakes, and blogs which haven’t updated for a while are chock full of regular commenters enquiring as to the welfare of the author. It feels like we’re expected to update our online presences all of the time, and whilst it’s nice that people care, sometimes the last thing you want to do is find a MySpace emoticon to describe your day.
Unfortunately, I think we’re moving even further towards a 24-hours a day availability culture…if we’re not there already. I had a discussion recently with someone else around why no-one was available to update my employer’s website 24 hours a day, which I just found weird - there’s simply no business case for that…yet!
It does worry me that the line between personal and professional life is starting to blur - both in terms of a distinct time periods for each, and and for the allegedly increasing practice of employers researching their (potential) employees’ online presence - and it’s going to be a very bitter pill to swallow for those of us who do our best to keep the two separate.
Posted 07 Oct 2008 at 4:10 pm ¶As for disclosing a terminal illness. I just saw someone (whom I don’t know very well) on Facebook today writing “two kidneys short of a long life”. And no, I have reasons to believe it’s not a joke.
Posted 08 Oct 2008 at 6:05 pm ¶Post a Comment