Facebreak
It struck me this morning (I’m a slow learner) how incredibly personal Facebook and other social networking sites are. A friend of mine split up with his girlfriend last night, and immediately afterwards they announced on Facebook that they were no longer in a relationship. That just seems really weird to me. I mean, I guess eventually your friends are going to find out if your relationship has ended, but announcing it online… But of course all these websites have a section where you say whether you’re in a relationship or not, and if you are, you tick the right box and don’t give a second’s thought to the downside: that if or when your relationship ends, you’re kind of obliged to untick it, thus announcing your break-up to the world.
For kids who’ve practically grown up with social networking sites, it seems the most natural thing in the world to tell strangers all about themselves; and at that age breaking up with someone, even though it might feel like the end of the world, doesn’t carry the weight of consequence it does in later life. But for those of us who are slightly older, for whom displaying ourselves online is a change from our previous behaviour and in some cases (my case I guess) represents a hitherto uncharacteristic openness, it probably deserves more thought than we’re currently giving it.
