A Note to My Facebook Friends and Others

For a while lately I have been wondering whether Facebook is an appropriate venue for social networking, as it claims. What does “social networking” mean? It could be exchanging family news, friend news, church news, reunion news. And it could mean networking with common interests, sharing common concerns, discussing larger issues and matters that influence our common soc-iety.

I find that the first general approach is the “fallback” position for Facebook, but the latter way of using Facebook is actually more common, althoug sometimes subtly so. Even when not asked, we are all bombarded with comments, surveys, attachments, and links that move the "simple" exchanges into more complicated sharings of what matters deeply to each of us. And when this second approach bothers us as recipients too much, we often revert to seeing Facebook as only for the most positive and basic forms of social networking. Facebook should not be religious, or political, we might protest, or we might be told.

This complicated, wonderful medium is precisely what makes Facebook work. For what it’s worth, I’ve decided not to opt out, but I’ve also decided not to worry about who likes or dislikes what I say. I’ll promise not to be personally offensive, or to use inflammatory rhetoric, as is common courtesy in all civil discourse. But the amount of discussion my recent posts have caused, and the amount of positive encouragement I have received – from students, my primary audience, as well as other friends for whom I am thankful to have the interchange—tell me that we all like a good discussion, and we all are really more interested in culture, religion, politics, values, and faith than we might initially think.

We like the interchanges because they move Facebook networking from charming niceties to substantial sharing of the depths of our complicated and wonderful selves.

Or so it seems.

slp / 11 Sept 09