Tag Archives: We Live in Public

Facebook = The New Josh Harris?

Posted on March 20, 2011 by NLVenosa

After watching the 2009 documentary We Live in Public in class, I’ve been trying to be more wary of my privacy settings on various social media outlets.  You could probably say I have some weird form of techie OCD when it comes to Facebook; about once a week, I check my privacy settings and friend lists (along with profile and photo album visibility regarding said lists) just to make sure everyone is seeing what I want them to see.  On this particular day of appeasing my techie OCD, I came across a strange discovery.

If you have a Facebook account, do the following and tell me you don’t feel like Mark Zuckerberg (*cough* Josh Harris *cough*) is hoarding your internet activity to use at a later time.  Go to:
Facebook > Account > Account Settings > Download Your Information (Learn More)

Granted, I wasn’t surprised that Facebook had just weaseled this option in there without any sort of warning or notification (it’s about as common as waking up and seeing your profile layout completely changed for the fifth time), but you have to admit, the idea that Facebook has every wall post, photo album, video, friend on your list, note, event listing, and message thread neatly converted into .html format and then compressed into a huge .zip file is a little strange, to say the least.

After I told Facebook that I wanted to download my information, it took almost a whole day to receive a confirmation e-mail with the link to download MY OWN INFORMATION.

Granted, although it creeped me out a little bit to see everything organized like that, I was actually relieved that this folder didn’t also include everything I had ever posted or written on other people’s profiles.  However, you know that the instant someone decides to download their information, any comment or post I had put on their profile will be saved forever for them to see.

After raising an eyebrow at Facebook for 40 minutes as I downloaded my internet life in a .zip file, I began to wonder, “What would make Facebook want to do this?”  Other than the rare occasion that eeeeeevery single server for Facebook crashes beyond repair and people lose their files forever, I have a very strange feeling that one day we’re going to have the choice (or necessity) to buy this seemingly useless collection of data.

Posted in Assignment 1 | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

holy matrimony

Posted on March 20, 2011 by gee.elle

Social media has definitely changed the world of communication and how individuals approach their real life relationships in the public sphere. Take, for example, marriage proposals.  Proposals are meant to be a show of love and affection, to prove to your significant other how important you are to them.  This no longer means popping the question in front of all your friends and family; it means alerting the entire electronic world. Can you imagine being proposed to through twitter? Living in the public sphere has obviously affected the intricacies of private relationships and the role that outsiders play in these relationships.

As Tanya explained in “We Live in Public”, when a couple is arguing, it’s more beneficial to step back, try to understand each side, and to compromise.  But when the argument occurs in public, it becomes about egos and who “wins” the fight.

A 2010 survey shows that four out of five matrimonial lawyers claim that an increasing number of cases involve the use of social networking sites to provide evidence. One case I found shocking was the story of a woman who had her husband arrested for bigamy after seeing photos of his second wedding on facebook.  The couple had been separated for a number of years, but had never officially gotten a divorce. When he deleted said wife from his friends list, he did not alter his privacy settings and she was still able to see the photos from his second wedding.  She then had him arrested for bigamy.

Clearly social media has the ability to build relationships and tear them down.  Ultimately it’s up to the user to determine how they use the interface to affect and influence their real world relationships.  But will this have permanent effects on socialization and communication in the future? Does providing an alternate source of communication allow for freer expression or does it mimic the purpose of greeting cards (allowing us to defer the responsibility of communication by saying the words we physically can’t)?

Posted in Assignment 2 | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments