Talk:Abby Suldan
Comment #1:
Right off the bat, your page looks really professional. Your image choices really bring out the sections you discuss, and I think you chose some really great areas to focus on. One of the things you wrote really stood out to me: that you use Facebook more as a scrapbook of things that you did in the past - it doesn't really reflect who you are now and what you do. I did find myself wondering if there was any online outlet (LinkedIn, etc.) that you find yourself using more of now instead of Facebook.
In regards to privacy, I think we all can relate to wanting to keep our profiles more professional looking, seeing as how employers now stalk prospective or current employees online. That being said, I find that what people don't say can often be as telling as what they do. One of the problems I have with Facebook, which I think you touch on when you talk about limiting what your parents and campers can see, is that there's always this struggle between being overly open vs private or professional. Facebook makes it so easy to share more and more information about ourselves that, sometimes without realizing it, we've created a map to who we are that is so detailed that people can end up finding out things about us that we never intended to share with a given group of people, even if we want it shared with others.
I think this also gets to the issue you raise about online norms. It's easy to say that you should be proud who you are, but so much of modern society enjoys judging people for just that. As a result, you could say that there's a very real need put on the best face possible. This often leads to the rather uncomfortable situation where we need to monitor what we post or like around people that are supposed to be our friends. Part of the problem, I would argue, is that while some people exclusively friend people that they're really close to, others use Facebook as a kind of digital Rolodex to keep track of associates that they may only have professional or working relationship with, and not one based on actual friendship. However, unlike in real life, it can be really hard to manage which audience your Facebook page should be tailored for - as once the information is out there, anyone can see it, whether they be friend or associate.
I think you roll these issues into your concluding section quite nicely. Ultimately, we all walk a tight rope when it comes to those we interact with in our life. There's the side of us that we share with those we feel close to, and the more detached persona that we present to everyone else. Professional relationships can be tricky, as they often fall somewhere in-between. You rightly point out that online personas make this issue more challenging, and that for all the reasons you outlined, a person can end up having a very different persona online than they do in reality, simply by virtue of having a much more complicated process of sharing oneself in the digital realm. That being said, if those issues doesn't apply to you, I'd say you should feel pretty lucky.
-Tom Bisbee
Comment #2:
Abby,
I really liked how you described the shift of your role on Facebook from an active role to a passive role. I feel that many college students, including myself, would agree that they post far less than they used to for a variety of reasons. The other thing that I really liked about your avatar is how you used pictures to delve deep into the Facebook privacy settings. The good thing about Facebook is that it gives you many options to remain private, but the bad thing is that there are so many options and sometimes the privacy settings and tools can be confusing and overwhelming. The pictures that you showed did a good job portraying the complexity of the privacy options that Facebook has, but it sounds like you have figured out how to used them to your benefit! One question that you ask in your “Switching Roles” section is “Do web platforms allow us to switch into different roles as we wish?” I think that if you wanted to pursue this question further, you can talk about how your habits have changed from time to time and how someone viewing your profile might view you differently based off these changing habits.
- Bobby Henderson
