There should be a Facebook Etiquette class before you’re allowed to log on. Matter fact, there should be a Social Networking Awareness class before being granted the privilege to interact with the rest of the world. But if that happened, Lamebook wouldn’t exist and I’d actually get more work done. Lamebook, boys and girls, is where those of us that forget there is a line between our digital and real lives are tarred and feathered, screen shot style. Last names are withheld to protect the retarted but that doesn’t conceal their convos. Take this for example:
Flag on the play. False Start on the Offense. TMI in your status update. 10 days, away from Facebook, First Down.
But jokes aside, the definition of privacy is changing in front of our eyes. Not only the legal definition (especially if you’re considered a “terrorist”) but the social definition as well. I’m not one to put my business out there but I never have been and that extends to social networking sites. Personal relationships are private (INBOX THAT SHIT). So what happens to people who had their business all over the playground/campus/workplace before social networking sites? Lamebook.
This can be said for people of our generation but what about the younger digital natives in elementary and high school right now? Can you truly be private and not risk alienating yourself from your digital social network? And if so, what is considered “OK” for public consumption and what isn’t? Especially when a conversation that, 10 years ago may have been the talk of the school and the talk of the town 100 years ago, can now become heard across the Internets.
I think this is an important question to ask the younger generation in a time where being savvy as a digital communicator is becoming as important as physical communication. Body language and eye contact parallel your text/GChat response time, tone and whether you should put a smiley face or a wink at the end of that message. Remember to update with caution or you might be our next contestant…
