Facebook

Ugh. I’ve been dreading Thing #27: Facebook, Networking and You.

Over the last couple of years, an increasing number of friends and family members (coworkers, not so much) have asked me to join Facebook. I’ve been avoiding it because, frankly, it never appealed to me. I'm afraid it will be just another thing that I will have to remember to check periodically, and that I will end up neglecting, like my blogs, Twitter, and four of my five email accounts.

But now it’s an assignment. Now I have to do it.

I chose Facebook over the other options because it seems to be most popular (and thus, to have the greatest market penetration), and more people I personally know are already members. Also, my library is on Facebook, so it just seems like it will be the most useful all around.

I somehow became a fan of Criss Library's page without actually doing anything. As soon as I finished creating my profile, I looked at my library's page, and I was already there listed as a fan. So weird! I also made myself a fan of the Kaneko-UNO Library, and I joined the groups for the Nebraska Library Association and Nebraska Library Leadership Institute Alumni. I put out several friend requests, including the four Nebraska Learns 2.0 leaders. Michael Sauers responded instantly, before I even finished searching the next friend's name.

One thing that really amazed me was how many people I know on Facebook. So many friends I haven't seen or interacted with in months or years, many family members, coworkers, and professional contacts. Is there Facebook etiquette? If I send a friend request to one colleague but not another, is that considered a snub to the one who didn't get a request? I sent some friend requests before I figured out how to join a network, then canceled them (they had not yet been accepted) after I joined the UNO network. Is that considered a snub? I hope not. These are folks I like working with. I genuinely lost sleep over this, and then I apologized to them in person the next day.

Also, I had trouble figuring out how to join a network. Finding useful help files on Facebook seems to be impossible. I had better luck searching Google for help. In general, Facebook's interface seems to clunky, cluttered, and unintuitive.

I'm also underwhelmed by their categorizing of their applications. "Sports Bets" and "What Kind of Tractor Are You?" are listed under Business? Really? "Send Cute Animals" is under Education? Really? It makes it hard for me to take Facebook seriously as a potential business tool. The personal, silly stuff overwhelms the serious, business stuff very quickly. I guess if I really wanted to use a social networking account for work, I would probably not use Facebook. I haven't looked at LinkedIn yet, but it at least has the reputation of being professionally-oriented.

With Bloglines and Delicious, I created two separate accounts for each, so I could keep my personal feeds and bookmarks separate from my professional ones. But I use those services so intensively, this division works effectively. However, with Facebook, there's really no way to keep them separate. So work and personal get all mixed up, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Okay, it makes me feel a lot uncomfortable. I couldn't even bring myself to log into Facebook at work to finish this exercise. For me, Facebook will be for home use only.

I think the biggest problem with Facebook is that it is trying to be everything to everyone. It is this enormous, sprawling, messy blob. It kind of sucks me in and makes me want to run away at the same time. I can see how it could become an enormous time-waster. ("Social not-working," as one of my coworkers described it.)

I think the most useful aspect of Facebook is its enormous user base, which lets you treat it kind of like a giant non-regional phone book. Also, the status updates seem very much like Twitter, except with Twitter you're tweeting predominantly to strangers and anyone in the world can read it, and with Facebook you're "tweeting" at people you actually know. Depending on your goal, either is legitimate, but personally I think I will find Facebook more satisfying than Twitter.

I do find some of the privacy concerns about Facebook rather alarming, and I'm not talking about what people might see in an indiscreet user's profile. The ACLU is presently going after Facebook because many of the quiz apps not only allow the quiz's developer access to a user's personal info, even if their profile is supposedly private, but they often allow the developer access to all the user's friends' personal data. That's pretty scary stuff.

I plan to actually keep using Facebook (though I'll probably avoid the quizzes), because it has allowed me to get back in touch with some friends that I'd lost contact with. But I plan to only use it at home for personal stuff, so if you're one of my Nebraska library contacts and you want to unfriend me because you're successfully using Facebook for purely professional reasons, I won't be offended, and I will still be thrilled to see you at NLA or any other library event.