Facebook Police

I have been avoiding doing a post on facebook for as long as possible, but since last week's presentation was about facebook, I suppose I cannot avoid it any longer. Facebook, such a contradicting subject. With this topic, I want to talk about what is known as "status updates" as well as the over all concept of censorship and how that connects to how you are portraying yourself.

I will not lie about the fact that I post far too many unnecessary "status updates" than a person should, but that does not stop me from posting. In one regard, some people will say, why would I ever need to know that about this person, but on the other hand the person reading the status update will probably say to a friend-- did you hear so and so is doing this right now. Whether or not we wanted to know that Becca is "cleaning her room, homework, then watching gossip girl at 9!", we still want to read it and engage with it because of human instinct to gather as much knowledge as possible. I would never go out of my way to gather that information, but now that I read it, I know exactly what Becca is doing and when- just from this there are so many different types of information I can gather- for one more analytical piece of information, if Becca doesn't pick up her phone from 9-10 on Monday, I will now assume she is watching Gossip Girl. 

Ironically, in George Orwell's 1984 classic novel, the characters had to hide their thoughts from the "thought police" in case anything they said was controversial. Characters would quiver at the thought of Big Brother and how he was always watching. Now, in 2010, people are craving for people to watch them ("stalk" in facebook lingo). If I want to find out what a person is doing, my first reaction is check their facebook status. What has the world come to that we are relying on other's to post their status on facebook to stay up to date on their lives?

If a person really wanted to, they could post false status' to perceive a different self. This is the problem with facebook. You must be able to account for the fact that some of the information posted may not actually be real. If I really had the desire, I could post status' saying I was backpacking across Europe and google images to post as mobile uploads-- do i know anyone that would do this, no, but it could certainly be done.

To identify a different element of facebook, but on the same note is photo uploads. The first thing that comes to mind for me is why on earth people enjoy posting photos of themselves on toilets or peeing in public places. I cannot tell you how many "toilet" photos I have seen on facebook. To me, if I wouldn't want to actually do this in front of the 1,800 people I am friends with on facebook, why am I posting it for those people to see. This absolutely baffels me. What is it about this particular pose that is so appealing. Photos are a great thing to be able to share, but you have to be careful about what type of photos you are putting out there and what you are sharing.

It is impossible not to generalize a person about what they post on facebook because that is the information a person is putting out for their friends to see. In fact, I would bet you that most people post the status updates and photos they do because they want people to think a certain way about themselves. Censorship is a huge part of being a part of this site and if you are not able to master the concept you could ruin your reputation for longer than you may think.

Although it would absolutely be awful to have Big Brother, sometimes I think Facebook police wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.