technoculture314-09

I was reading Cosmopolitan the other day and one of the front cover headlines was "what counts as cheating now?". It seems that the ease with which one can keep in touch with ex boy friends or ex girl freinds is problematic in relationships in this day and age. If this issue has come into a popular magazine, it seems that it's not just academics who worry about the moral and ethical issues of privacy in a public domain. The editor of the magazine made the comment that her partner always asks if it's okay to accept or reject friends on facebook. She also mentioned that she had implicit trust in him but another reason she wasn't too worried was because he hardly ever went on facebook. There's an interesting paradox in what she says. Does she only trust him because facebook isn't a priority? Would she trust him less if facebook was one of his priorities? If we ever had disagreements with people it used to be out of sight, out of mind. With the dawn of social networking sites we are forced to know what these people are upto. On the facebook newsfeed we get a list of what people have been posting up and saying to each other. Many a time, people who we don't really care about are in touch with people we care about and we get a record of what this person has been upto. Usually boyfriends and girlfriends will know atleast one member in your friends circle. Even if you make the conscious effort to not add an ex, you are faced with what they are doing through another friend. This can be problematic to those select few who are very sensitive but in a way it is a huge infringement on privacy. We are not given the control to select what shows up on our news feed (And if we are sorry for my lack of knowledge). SecondLife takes all of these issues on a whole other level. Cheating is defined differently by different people. To some it maybe a physical engagement, while to others it maybe an emotional and mental engagement with no physical contact involved. I think Facebook and SecondLife make it easier for individuals to distance themselves from their reality if it all gets a bit much.They can escape to another reality and this may not always be a positive thing as other relationships may suffer.