Social Media: Facebook

What with work and gaming and other such hobbies, much of the social interaction I get with the majority of my friends these days occurs online.  In point of fact, I have to say that not a lot of it actually counts as "interaction" in my book - it rather resembles stalking each other lives through picture posts and status updates. Face-to-face conversations reference twitter, facebook, or blog-posts.  Which is all well and good, and saves us from having to relate details of our lives that either we'd rather not recount 14 times for 14 difference audiences, or from boring our friends to death with topics they really couldn't care less about.  If they want details, "It's on my blog."

At my Writer's Group recently, however, we've ended up discussing the social protocols that need to exist on social media sites.  Protocols that either don't exist at all, or are blatantly ignored.  So when this wiki-how article came across my feed this morning, I was struck by the appropriateness of it's timing. 

Some of my favorite tips from the article include:

Self-exposure is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can make you seem endearing, real, poignantly tragic but highly approachable and possibly lovable. On the other hand, it can make you seem like a twit, and risks giving too much information out about bodily functions, stuff-ups, and moronic moments that are perhaps best kept to yourself. Use good judgment to get this balancing act "just right".

And:

Focus on good news. Whether it's your own good news or the good news of a friend, most of us enjoy reading the positive, uplifting news. There's enough bad news out there already without your status updates adding to it.

But if I had to pick just one of the tips that the article gives, it would be this one: 

Word updates as if they're news headlines, or opening lines aimed at drawing in the reader for more . . .

I disagree with the advice that you should use the new polling system though.  There is something terribly impersonal to me about these polls, and it is annoying to see them constantly popping up amongst status updates.  If I'm interested in which of the top 100 movies my friends have seen, or which of the top 100 books they've read, I'd prefer to see these as notes - which somehow seem easier to read, and far easier to ignore until later when they are posted.  

Facebook is an electronic means of connecting with friends, family, fans (if you're a celebrity) and so on.  Use the common sense (that seems these days to be so uncommon) that you would use when talking to the people on your list in person.  If you wouldn't be comfortable sharing your status update with each of them, face to face, don't subject them to it on Facebook. 

Bottom line:  We're given the opportunity to edit ourselves, to think about our wording, and to make our points with clarity, with thought, with tact, or with humor, or with wit.  Why don't we take advantage of that?