“You’ve been tagged,” read the e-mail from Facebook that landed in my in-box soon after I had caved to the pressure and joined. I am sure you savvy Queen-Anners and Magnolia-ites are saying, “So?” Because you know that being tagged is not the result of being the slowest runner on the playground as it once was, but of being identified publicly in a photo that one of your 7,562 friends posted on Facebook.
My newbie response was to panic. “Whaaaat?” There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no one to tag back.
I calmed down and clicked my way to the photos that now bore my name. My panic was justified. They were unflattering, silly, embarrassing. There was no way I would have displayed those photos in my home, never mind posted them in a public forum.
Worse, they served as portals where anyone could click on the tags and go to my Facebook page. The boundaries were weakening. The force field was shaky. I felt exposed, and I didn’t like it one bit.
This experience led me to re-examine the phenomenon, which I had resisted both for privacy reasons and not wanting yet another thing I had to keep up with.
I sometimes yearn for the days when returning calls on my answering machine was a bother: having to talk to people who had called while I was out. Oh, for that blinking red light after a busy day at the old IBM Selectric.
I know. I’m old. But hear me out.
Eventually, I reasoned that I shouldn’t knock it until I tried it — although I didn’t use that philosophy with heroin, thank goodness. I started my Facebook page but included privacy settings impervious to anyone who didn’t have a one-legged great-grandmother from Kyrgyzstan or, obviously, work for the National Security Agency.
I learned that “friend” is now a verb, as in friends “friended” me after I joined. And I got to decide which of my friends I wanted to “friend” back. My new (old) friends complained because they couldn’t get to anything juicy, anything other than the basics: name, rank and serial number.
Which leads me to the voyeuristic aspect of Facebook: Who doesn’t get a thrill out of looking at someone’s photos or reading notes people post to one another? Me! I feel creepy when I read something or see something that is not meant for me. But do I read it? Yes! Do I look at it? Of course! Human beings have had an innate fascination with forbidden fruit since Adam and Eve.
But does taking a bite of that fruit make your life better and deepen your connections? I hesitate before admitting to people that I saw their photos on Facebook. It feels weird to me, like admitting to peering into their window at night.
What’s there to ‘like’?
I don’t hate Facebook. I love my friends who love Facebook. And I do see the value in it.
Facebook is a fabulous way to reconnect with people from your past with whom you have lost contact (like the guy you went to the prom with — what was his name again?). It’s a useful tool for viewing friends’ vacation photos (without the accompanying stories that can cause an inexplicable craving for a six-shot latte).
Seriously, though, after a recent family reunion on the East Coast, I was able to share photos and stay in touch with cousins whom I had not seen in years. That was wonderful and likely would not have happened without Facebook.
But I question Facebook’s ability to create and maintain true connections. I wonder whether, in fact, we are becoming more disconnected than ever.
Before I joined Facebook, a friend e-mailed, admonishing me for not responding to his numerous friend requests. “I want to stay in touch with you!” he scolded. “I want to know what you are doing!” I responded with a newsy e-mail and explained that I was not on Facebook and that it was the other Irene Hopkins he should be yelling at, not me.
After joining, I learned that, although I now had lots of friends, I wasn’t “liking” them enough when a friend told me, “You have to start ‘liking’ things so we know you’re with us.” As for the tagging, another friend comforted me by saying, “You’ll get used to it.”
What if I don’t want to get used to it?
Privacy, no more
I felt alone in my thinking until I came across several articles: one in The Seattle
Times titled “Facebook: How Active, Fun and Connected Can Turn Shallow, Creepy and Obsessive,” by Claudia Rowe, and another on National Public Radio’s website, “Stop Me Before I Facebook Again,” by Vanessa Romo. These articles let me know that — old and dorky as I may be — my concerns were shared. The Times article stated that in May 2011, 6 million users in the United States cancelled their accounts because of concerns about privacy, time wasted on-lin, and problems with addiction.
Yes, addiction: the hit of serotonin we receive while on-line needs management if we are susceptible to that sort of thing, states NPR’s Romo. Think about it: How many times have you been with someone who is constantly pulling out his or her device, checking e-mail, Facebook and texts? Or if their phone rings, saying, “I have to take this — sorry.” And we accept it as being more important than the current interaction. Hmmm….
Edward Snowden, for better or for worse, has revealed how fragile our privacy is. We can be OK with that, as in the “If you don’t have anything to hide, why do you care” people. Or we can be irate.
But what I worry about is our unwitting participation in the gradual conditioning of our disregard for privacy. Be careful.
IRENE HOPKINS lived on Queen Anne for 20 years and now lives in Ballard —. in an undisclosed location. To comment on this column, write to hopkinsirene23@gmail.com.
[[In-content Ad]]