Caught in the Web of Facebook

Facebook. The "Web 2.0" social networking service that brings old classmates and teachers, new and old relationships, family and friends together. A great procrastination tool or cause for revenue loss, depending on which side of the desk you sit. New pop-culture terminology has even exploded via this phenomenon. You may find yourself refering to it as "stalkerbook" or discussing how someone "friended" you.


I personally started my own Facebook account in 2008 and now have several hundred "friends" including family, former students (as my policy is not to befriend current or past students until they graduate college), old high school and college buddies, co-workers and a few other friends of friends.

Facebook gives people a forum for personal expression through status updates, posting pictures videos, and blog-like notes. It also offers the opportunity to comment on others' statuses, search for friends, chat with friends, create or join clubs, groups, fan pages, create invitations to events, and play games. It's really a one-stop social shop for anyone wanting to connect with other people without leaving the house, though one could also get on Facebook while outside of the house and surrounded by all kinds of people.

This service is not without controversy, however. Recently, Facebook has announced that it will implement facial recognition technology to make "tagging" photos easier. Tagging allows you to label other persons in a picture you post on Facebook, thereby connecting that photo with that friend's Facebook page. The facial recognition technology would make the tagging process easier because it would recognize the facial features and pair those features to potential matches among your "friends". Therefore you would not need to tag your friend in every individual photo, the facial recognition technology would do it for you. Some argue that this is an infringement of personal privacy. Facebook does offer options to opt-out, but unless one keeps up with the regular updates, they would not know how or when to do this.

Ultimately, it is important for a person to familiarize him or herself with any kind of technology where personal information is divulged, be that birthdays, places of employment, educational background, phone-numbers, email addresses, etc... all of which may be displayed on Facebook unless one chooses to keep his or her profile under a higher privacy level.