Facebook's News Feed
Sunday, September 27, 2009 by Sam
danah boyd's article, "Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck" struck me as particularly interesting this week, as the release of the News Feed feature actually discouraged me from using Facebook as much as I used to before it was introduced, and even shifted the way I use it.
With every bit of information being automatically published to my whole network, I felt more self-conscious about what I was posting than I previously did, despite the information being no more private than it was before. I stopped to think about how each bit of information would be interpreted by anyone on my friends list - whether they were family, people from high school, or even my boss. In a sense, I restricted the information that I would normally post for closer friends, simply because of the weaker ties that exist on my network who would also be able to view it.
The effort needed to keep up to date with a whole network's worth of information is much less than it was previously. Before, when you wanted to 'Facebook stalk' someone, it was done consciously, clicking through to their profile, and investigating each section for the information you were after. And to keep up to date with this information, this effort would need to be undertaken on a regular basis. But with the News Feed, each update is automatically presented to you upon logging in. There is no need to seek it out.
The addition of the News Feed has also made us less inclined to search for information, as we believe all of it is presented for us. Recently, a girl on my network was admitted to the ICU in a fairly serious condition. Her brother, who was not part of my network, posted a note on her profile. But it was a week before anyone on my network read this notice, as the News Feed negates the need to visit a profile page in order to glean information. When someone actually visited her profile, the information spread throughout our high school network, as the content of this person's comment became visible in our News Feeds. We had become reliant on it to seek out our information for us.
With every bit of information being automatically published to my whole network, I felt more self-conscious about what I was posting than I previously did, despite the information being no more private than it was before. I stopped to think about how each bit of information would be interpreted by anyone on my friends list - whether they were family, people from high school, or even my boss. In a sense, I restricted the information that I would normally post for closer friends, simply because of the weaker ties that exist on my network who would also be able to view it.
The effort needed to keep up to date with a whole network's worth of information is much less than it was previously. Before, when you wanted to 'Facebook stalk' someone, it was done consciously, clicking through to their profile, and investigating each section for the information you were after. And to keep up to date with this information, this effort would need to be undertaken on a regular basis. But with the News Feed, each update is automatically presented to you upon logging in. There is no need to seek it out.
The addition of the News Feed has also made us less inclined to search for information, as we believe all of it is presented for us. Recently, a girl on my network was admitted to the ICU in a fairly serious condition. Her brother, who was not part of my network, posted a note on her profile. But it was a week before anyone on my network read this notice, as the News Feed negates the need to visit a profile page in order to glean information. When someone actually visited her profile, the information spread throughout our high school network, as the content of this person's comment became visible in our News Feeds. We had become reliant on it to seek out our information for us.