Facebook

So I decided to look up Facebook tonight. I've always been a guy who is pretty much "in-the-know" when it comes to things related to computers, but I admit I have been slacking on this one. I've heard of Facebook and other sites like it, and heard that they are this new wave of "social media", but have neglected them until now.

I signed up pretty quickly and easily. Since I'm not currently in college, I signed up as "an employee" with my work email address. Facebook automatically linked me to two groups, one for my employer, and one for my geographic area. The employer thing is kinda cool, and I like how it automatically found it based on my work email address. It could have helped that I work for a fortune 500 company. There were quite a few people in my employer's network, though one I did the math, it turns out to be less than 2% of the employees.

It was pretty easy to search around the site, and I actually found quite a few people I know through my High School's network. You can set it up for your class year to narrow things down a bit. I found a bunch of people I think I'd like to connect with again... and a few I didn't.

What really got me thinking and blogging though, was realizing the nature of the site, and the position it put me in. It lets you do a lot of things, and helps you let people know a lot about you. The thing is, I'm still living in an online world where there is but ONE reference relating my real identity with my online identity. Facebook is based on your name, where you live, who you know, and how to get in touch with you. Very much not anonymous.

So it's all in or not in at all. I honestly backed out for now. I found the privacy settings and basically hid my existence for now. Maybe in looking around a little more, I'll decide to go all-in, or at least let people start to find me, but it is kinda scary out there right now. Maybe because this puts me back into high school, where I was not the most outgoing, confident, or popular kid. There are actually a lot of different scenarios playing through my head now. I'll definitely be writing on this issue again later, to work through this brave new world (or, as it may be, old one).