FBs been on my mind, this morning. Must be the time change.
First, my daughter asked me last night how to defriend someone -- she'd friended him, and then he started asking some questions, so that she decided she didn't really want to 'know' this guy. Creep, I thought, and walked her through the process (which, though easy, is harder than it ought to be.)
And then I sent a FB note to someone I somewhat-knew from email conversations a while back, just to say Hi. The emails had stopped when she decided that she didn't actually know me well enough to continue. I could understand that, even as I thought at the time Wait, I'm normal, honest!
Um. Yeah. Kind of strange, seeing both sides so close together.
I don't know if this person will respond to my note, but if not? I think I understand why. (But I'm normal! Honest!)
4 comments:
You might want to go here (instead of reading her whole Ph.D. thesis for some reassurance..http://www.danah.org/papers/FriendsterMySpaceEssay.html> on the safety of social sites.
I don't think that social sites are safe. Even beyond the things that kids do which cause me to stare in disbelief, I think that they encourage an casual attitude that isn't really appropriate. I think of that guy, for example, who built the 'Rob This House' site from info found in public places. I myself have three separate email ids -- one for people who know me, one that's linked to from this blog, that I also use for comments on web sites, and one that's the throwaway spam catcher. My daughter knows about this, but I don't think she really understands why I do it.
So if this person doesn't respond -- yeah, I'll be a little sad, since the whole idea was getting in contact with someone who I'd like to know more about (she's a computer graphics person, which is an area that intrigues me, mostly because I don't really understand how it works), but I'll understand why. As I say, I've been on both sides.
Wasn't that a song once?
I was referring to young people being stalked. According to statistics it is very rare and much like the issue we have with people poisoning Halloween candy. I think if we teach our children to not post anything they don't want on the front pages of a newspaper and to be careful about strangers chances are their networking with friends will not be a bad experience. Sure there are bullies and will be snobs, but they also have that in reality in school.
Problem is when they forget how much stuff is visible. I think there ought to be a 'friends, and immediate friends of friends, but no further' option.
Post a Comment