It’s all getting kind of muddy online for grownups. For the pioneers of social networking – teenagers and 20-something just starting out their careers – it wasn’t such a big deal. They didn’t make the distinctions we make between “lives.” They, especially teens, experimented with different persona, but that’s just it. The persona were experimental, not established. Now that we adults are getting into social networking, and social sites are proliferating and specializing (or settling into niches), fortunately we have some choices: We can have our professional social networking, our extended-family social networking, our music social-networking, but we are also having social networking dilemmas. Take Washington Post tech reporter Rob Pegoraro’s experience with Facebook, for example. For him, Facebook started out to be “purely recreational” and kind of solidified in his head as such. Then co-workers started friending him. Okaaaaay, he could maybe get used to that. But then p.r. people in his business circles but not personally known to him wanted to be “friends.” Hmmm. The problem is, Facebook has become what you might call the hip LinkedIn.com (a “social-networking” site that has always been about professional networking), so plenty of people 30+ are now doing professional networking on it. Facebook does have “at least 135” privacy options. “Yet not one of these options allows you to categorize Facebook contacts as close or distant friends.” It’ getting a little tricky. See p. 2 of Rob’s article for his conclusion.
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