Academic

Facebook and Imaginary "Friends"

By Jacqueline Lipton

While indulging in my usual conference-inspired USA Today-fest last week, I noticed an article by Craig Wilson effectively dealing with "friendship fatigue" on Facebook.  Wilson likens Facebook friends to the imaginary friends of our childhoods ie people who help you get through the day, but who aren't truly "real".  This is a thread that has been picked up in a lot of privacy law scholarship recently when people note that the social norms about privacy usually attributable to the "friendship" situation don't necessarily hold out so well in the social networking context where friendship is a binary concept ie either someone is a friend (and privy to all information you post online) or they're not (and have no access to your personal information).  This can lead to loss of control over often sensitive personal information, particularly as the collected wisdom is that it's very difficult to "de-friend" someone once you have "friended" them.  Wilson gives an example of a person who takes an indefinite break from Facebook due to information overload, suggesting perhaps that the tables are turning and it will now be more acceptable to "de-friend" (or "de-follow") people if you would prefer they didn't have access to your profile.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on June 16, 2009 (boomark / email).