Like members of the large chorus of undergraduates who protested Facebook.com's new "feed" capability, I was overwhelmed with the Web site's recent upgrade from semi-stalker mode to full-on stalker capability.
In addition to the many Facebook groups formed, the outrage resulted in users removing information from their profiles and deleting the mini-feeds that their profiles displayed. The day after the new changes took place, Zuckerberg posted a note on the Facebook blog, titled "Calm Down. Breathe. We Hear You." Two days later, he posted a letter on everyone's homepage, offering better privacy controls to users who allowed them to individually choose what information their mini-feed displays.
I got over the initial shock of seeing the feeds, however, once I realized that I could now learn more meaningless facts about people I didn't really know. I liked the news feed, which highlights profile changes in one's social circles, and the mini-feed, which focuses on an individual's recent Facebook activity.
The only reason people are so bothered is because now they realize the extent to which their information is public. They realize how many random people can monitor their movement. The new changes were merely a nasty surprise for those who still wrongly believed that Facebook was much more private than it really is. Your classmates, families and even your employers are learning a lot these days from that profile of yours.
From the feeds, nothing new is learned about a person that couldn't be gleaned by reading someone's recently updated profile. Yes, now one can see what other people post on their friends' walls, but those are easily accessed despite the feeds. People can now see who joined or left groups, or who became friends, but really, who cares? The mini-feed is not as drastic as everyone is making it out to be. It is just an organizational improvement.
The news feed, however, does prove how much people focus on their profiles and friendships with others. It proves that they care about the details of their favorite movies or books or what activities they are involved in. They care because other people read them. People change their picture to look prettier or cooler. Everyone un-tags photos that they find unflattering.
With the mini-feed, one's veil of anonymity and claims that he doesn't log onto Facebook that much are now more transparent -- sort of. The mini-feed is not designed to take away people's privacy; that was already done when people willingly registered for a Web site that could be easily accessed by hundreds of thousands of individuals. Anything posted on Sally's profile can still be edited by Sally herself.
The news feed may be unnerving, but it will not kill Facebook. Instead, users are forced to face the voyeuristic tendencies of themselves and their classmates.
On the Internet, voyeurism and anonymity are comfortable bedfellows. People are drawn to www.postsecret.com, a site at which users publicly and anonymously confess their wrongdoings. They tell scores of strangers their most intimate thoughts and actions and receive a supposed cathartic release. In turn other people read these secrets, even though they have no idea who is writing them.
Personal blogs are similar: People can write their innermost thoughts but don't have to state who they are talking about. Other people read them, because there is something intriguing about knowing things about other individuals, regardless of the fact that these people may be loose acquaintances or strangers.
No one wants to admit that they enjoy knowing minute details about people to whom they've never spoken. Yet somehow, to nearly all of us, it matters.
There's a reason why Web sites like Facebook and MySpace are so popular. The sites are meant to give users a small window into someone else's life. They're meant for innocent flirting, for keeping tabs on your crush and waiting for his or her relationship status to go from "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" to "single." We all like searching through random pictures. We all like seeing what the people around me are doing with their lives and what their interests are. Call it legitimate or call it voyeuristic, it's a sin to which nearly all of us can confess.
--- --Carey Polis is a senior Writing Seminars major from Bethesda, Md.
