Airing personal life on Facebook

Facebook is a weird beast. It is a great platform for communication. But at the same time I think the society hasn’t realized how powerful of a tool it can be. A status update, an uploaded photo, a click on a ‘Like’ button now gets broadcasted way beyond the close circle of friends.

And that can pose a whole array of questions, like Can one be too socially connected? Can one have too many Facebook friends? What is appropriate to say on Facebook and what is not? And many many more.

For example, this morning I logged on to Facebook and discovered that a colleague of mine is divorcing. And apparently in a very public way. The colleague’s status update (on my wall) contained a very mean attack at the soon-to-be ex. It even included the kids. Ouch!

It pretty much felt like I was sitting in the living room and listening to them arguing in the bedroom. It made me feel awkward. I understand that people’s lives change, but flashing it in front of everybody on Facebook doesn’t feel right to me. Especially because we are colleagues.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like not knowing some of my colleagues’ personal lives.

I don’t really like finding out about important things in people’s lives on Facebook either. Somehow it feels impersonal. It’s great to share a photo of a July 4^th Fireworks or to share a link to an interesting article. But dissing your ex or breaking up with someone seems just inappropriate.

It’s like thank you cards. Ok, don’t yawn. Yes, thank you cards. They went from a card to a thank you on the phone to thanks to TX. And don’t’ get me wrong, I’m not anti-TX-er. It is just in some situations a TX, thanks or even thank you is just not enough.

OK, enough of being serious.

Here is a eye candy for you, a treat to reading through this post.

Chances are, you have already seen it, but even if you did, I’m sure you’ll watch it again.