Social Networking Hazards

I will cross post here as I think this is useful stuff!

There are some real life lessons everyone can take away from this experience as we take it OFF-LINE where it belongs to be sorted out and addressed.

Let us all consider.

A person makes a statement on the internet, on FaceBook in fact. A declaration of some excited towards and quickly approaching real life event.
B , a Facebook fan of A, and coincidentally a REAL LIFE fan of A comments on this post demonstrating support and presence in the life of A.

NOW. In real life. The opportunity for B and C the event coordinator to ever be in the same room at the same, to accidentally bump into one another in the street and “recognized” that they shared B as a common friend etc. is zero.
HOWEVER. In Facebook land.... Instantly B and C are teleported into the same room.

Sometimes C another friend of A looks over and says to B :
Hello B, how are you? I am C, I will be in town meeting with A would you also like to attend?
B and C go back and forth a few times in what would otherwise be a verbal conversation lasting 15 to 30 seconds.

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A is no longer in the middle of B and C, there is no control mechanism. This very real feeling then crosses back into REAL LIFE, but it doesn’t fit very well because in REAL LIFE, the only way for B or C to have EVER met is in a controlled condition of A’s devise.

The lesson is that Facebook can put folks into the same room that might never otherwise land there. No doubt this is neat, fun, exciting opportunity but it has long term effects of relationships, and will present future generations with uncharted NEW challenges not present with pre-Facebook era lifestyle.

Back in Real life… You cannot air laundry on Facebook. It isn’t fair to allow your emotions to go unfiltered to an audience and long term storage mechanism in such uncharted territory. To say the things that people sometimes say to such an audience 15 years ago would have required you purchase a bill-board and find an artist. That you rent space on a 10 second commercial. And you aren't posting the 9,999 things that wen't great with the relationship, you are posting the 1 negative thing you are thinking of at the moment.

Everyone might think, do I really mean to run an ad-campaign out of what it is I am posting? What happens if Facebook goes public tomorrow? What if I as a person lost my ability to keep the “public” out of my postings? What if my future employers, my children, others gain reading ability to all of my Facebook? What if my great great great grand-children will have the ability to release your Facebook accounts after you die?

The long term implications of running billboard campaigns about the play by play emotions of the instant moment in the lives of one another cannot be allowed to cross beyond a novelty to become at the cost of our real life relationships.

Bottom line, let’s take all of this off-line where it belongs and sort it out, it doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t make sense, it is new uncharted territory but we can agree to a set of ground rules in relationship that were violated, we can make our apologies, we can practice Kaizen or the art of continued improvement and agree to work even harder to ensure relationships stay strong and that we aren't posting everything we "feel", often our "feelings" change.