Sunday, August 12, 2012

31. Facebook

Tonight I'm nurturing my gratitude for Facebook. I've been feeling pretty ambiguous about Facebook for the past week or so, especially after learning that my profile would change to the new timeline feature by default. With the current profile, it was already difficult to control my privacy settings, without making it only visible to myself, which kinda defeats the purpose of Facebook, as the privacy features are based on an 'opt-out' idea, where one has to manually edit features for every single 'friend.' I viewed the whole timeline feature with skepticism, thinking it as a way to make my profile even more public in an attempt to perhaps generate greater revenue and recover some of the momentum that the company had lost during its initial public offering.

Then I started thinking of some of the great things about Facebook, about how it has reconnected me with people from my past that I had completely lost touch with, and who are thousands of miles away, enabling me to get a glimpse of their current lives through their posts and pictures. I thought of how easy it is to post pictures and share news with everyone simultaneously, and the joy I feel when others are able to share in my joys, or offer me suggestions when I'm in a tough spot. The concern with privacy still remains - however, I also recognize I live in an era and amongst a generation where publicizing through social media is the norm. Many years ago, people were very concerned about email privacy, when email was still relatively new, and now it has become ubiquitous. Perhaps, in a few years, social media will be viewed in the same light, with privacy being less of an issue. So, I am thankful for the connections that Facebook has enabled, and for being able to share joyous events and passionate causes instantaneously.

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