[PLUG-TALK] Facebook Users As Lab Rats
Russell Johnson
russ at dimstar.net
Tue Jul 1 18:39:25 UTC 2014
On Jun 30, 2014, at 3:26 PM, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at gate.kl-ic.com> wrote:
> If you are getting it for free, you are the product.
By and large, this is true. I see this all the time, even from friends on Facebook. We have a ton of examples all over the place. TV and Radio to name a few. Maybe the government should have put up billboards and sold the space alongside roadways to pay for road improvements. But that fund probably would have been pilfered as well.. But I digress…
I can say, unequivocally, that Facebook or an equivalent is pretty indispensable to me at this point in time. Through it, I have rekindled friendships dating back to grade school. I have found relatives, some of which I didn’t know how I would ever find, and some that I didn’t know I had. I have a good friend who just recently connected with a brother that she knew she had, but had never connected with. I too have some siblings that I have not yet been able to find, but I’m hopeful. I now maintain these friendships mostly through Facebook.
It’s also put a new perspective on some things in my life. In 2012, I went to my 30th High School Reunion. Up to about 2010, I had absolutely zero intention of ever going to a reunion. School was just that horrible of an experience for me. But starting in 2010, something amazing happened. I reconnected with a few people that I knew in school, but wasn’t really friends with. What I found out was that most of the people that I didn’t talk to in school didn’t talk to me for exactly the same reason I didn’t talk to them. We were all so shy and afraid of rejection that no one spoke up to just say, “Hi”. Since then, we’ve all grown up and now most of us talk to each other. And I had a blast at the reunion. Saw some people that I’ve known since High School, and made a ton of new friends. The real kind. Flesh and blood.
I’ve also recently reconnected with several people I was in the Air Force with.
That’s one thing about my profile on Facebook. Almost every person on my friends list is a flesh and blood friend. Those that aren’t, I either have plans to meet ‘in real life’ or hope to.
I know I’m the product as far as Facebook is concerned. I also realize that most of what I’ve said above is entirely possible outside of Facebook, but it’s a whole lot harder, and some of those things I remember my parents lamenting about when I was younger.
Knowing what I know about Facebook and network security, I post most things on Facebook publicly. If I’m on a trip, I’ll post any status updates about my trip, while it’s happening, only to my friends, but other than that, most of it is public. Almost everything else is findable anyway.
Privacy is and always has been an illusion.
Russell Johnson
russ at dimstar.net
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