Facebook and Twitter have made people open to the concept of sharing every personal detail with the world. I won’t sit here and pretend that I don’t update my status. I update it fairly regularly in fact but only when I have something useful to say like informing the world about how well I did at a race. Occasionally I will just make a flippant comment or amusing observation but only when I think it’s something people will find useful… or offensive.
It’s when people start posting status messages informing everyone about some family drama that is occurring in their life and bleeding their hearts to the world about personal rubbish that should really be kept private that I get really annoyed. I’m not interested in knowing how pathetic someone’s life is. Keep that kind of thing to yourself.
The one that makes me laugh is when female friends post status messages complaining about getting friend requests from perverts and strange men who they don’t know. Well if you’re going to take pictures of yourself in your underwear and use it as your profile picture, you are going to attract those kinds of people.
The new “Facebook Places” and “Google Places” take this sharing malarkey to a new height of dangerousness. Using GPS tracking you can basically tell people exactly where you are at any given time. This now means some of my friends are informing everyone that they are at home. Who cares? Then they’ll inform everyone that they have checked in somewhere halfway across the country. Great, thanks for letting me know you’re not at home so I know it’s safe to break in and rob you!
Seriously, I would never publicly display my current location. I mean, I could get into serious trouble for that…
Very interesting note can I ask what the benefits of the states updates are and what places could be as a positive effect from using it ?
ReplyDelete@ Peter A Clayton From a business perspective, keeping followers regularly updated on relevant and/or interesting issues is a good thing. It not only keeps a good relationship from a social point of view but it's also productive; if you show a willingness to help, people are likely to be receptive to it.
ReplyDeleteAgain, from a business side of things, the Google and Facebook places could be useful for letting people know you are, for example, at a trade show and this might encourage them to come down and say hello.
Hope that helps.
:-)
ReplyDelete