Victim of Culture

Facebook has become too popular to be useful

Face it, Facebook, you’re just too popular.  You’re the local weatherman who can’t go to the adult bookstore because everyone knows your face (never mind who would have to be there to rat you out).  What was once a cool fad has gone mainstream to the point where grandma and grandpa are using it.  What’s hip about it anymore?

Face it, Facebook users, Facebook has made you into the local weather man.  Where once you could post pictures from your drunken weekend, no longer is that possible.  Your teachers, preachers, bosses, and grandparents are on.  Sure, you can try to ignore their friend requests, but isn’t that a little like stalling when someone says, “We’re friends, right?”

Facebook’s popularity will ultimately be its undoing, or at least its fundamental changing.  What do the young and hip do when the old and tragically unhip are also friending them?  I fall into that weird middle ground.  I’m too old to be posting pictures of my drunken weekend, but I’m young enough to have heard of most of the major Web 2.0 sites (even if I think the term Web 2.0 is silly).  So, where does that leave me?

I’m on Facebook, but more and more I notice old professors, current colleagues, and aunts and uncles joining on as well.  Anything I might say slightly sardonic feels like it has to be vetted first, just in case someone might take it the wrong way.  Would noting that HIS 213 was useless and just proven wrong by The History Channel perhaps reflect poorly on me with that past professor?  Possibly, but who cares?  That’s in the past, right?  But then, I am friends with him in the first place because of the allure of networking, and in the world of academia it’s paramount (well, in any world really, minus Vulcan (RIP)).

One solution is to keep two separate profiles—a personal and a professional one.  Or perhaps to keep professional profiles limited to LinkedIn.  But what about when that professional contact is only on Facebook?  Or what about when that person on Facebook isn’t professional, but you don’t really want them knowing what’s personal, either?  Multiple profiles is a pain, and it seems to be the whole reason everyone would join Facebook in the first place.  Otherwise, why don’t we all just join fifty different networks and we’ll sort it all out later?

The more Facebook grows, like with many businesses, the less it feels intimate.  Ten years ago it was still cool to be an Apple user as you fought the good fight against the Evil Empire.  Now?  You own an iPod just like everyone else.  Your computer is a fashion statement, not a hard-line stance on software engineering.  With popularity went some of the cache of being an Apple fan, and thereby some of the usefulness (for some).  Still a good product, but it isn’t exactly screaming cool these days.

Facebook faces the same battle now.  When soccer moms are using it to organize car pools, where’s the cool factor to keep young people using it?  We can already see that some are heading to Twitter, but it exudes an even more open interface than Facebook.  You don’t even have to friend someone—just allow them to follow you.  Who cares if someone follows them?  Oh, wait…

Privacy has been an issue since the early days of the Internet, but only now is the importance of it really reaching the masses.  Google monitoring what you search?  Who cares?  Every web site collecting personal data in order to read content?  Small price to pay!  Mom on Facebook?  FML, WTF?

No related posts.