This Place is a Prison, and these People Aren't Your Friends

"...Oh dear God, what a tangled web we weave..."
- At the Drive In

I've often thought of the prospect of writing about Facebook...on Facebook...as being either kind of lame, or simply a reflection of a lack of ideas of things to write about that are actually substantive. However, I've realized something about this weird place inhabited by 150,000,000 people (and rapidly growing) that I think is actually worth knowing. Also, a few small-time publications have been writing about Facebook lately, such as Newsweek... which featured one of their writers announcing that he was quitting Facebook ...on the pages of the internationally read magazine's website...as well as Time Magazine's recent Twenty-five Things I Didn't Want to Know About You... which featured a "reporter" complaining about the sudden omnipresence of the "25 'random' things about me" lists that have been multiplying faster than the woman in L.A. who just had fertility-science assisted Octuplets...to follow up on having 6 previous kids.

My reason, unlike the aforementioned professional journalist-types, for writing about the Face-maze, is that I have finally found something in the tangible and physical world that we still (yes, even you World of Warcraft kids) actually inhabit that I can use to describe exactly what Facebook is. And that real-life concept is that of the panopticon. Now, I could go ahead and explain what a panopticon is, but instead I'm just going to discuss the concept through some observations I've had during the 4 or 5 years I've been on Facebook...and watching the steadily eroding remnants of anonymity as it has gone from it's original status as the secure and relatively "private" and controlled college alternative to MySpace to a wide-open anyone can join slightly less jumbled and sleazy alternative to Myspace. I guess another alternative that you, the reader, has is clicking on the link I just posted. But, realistically, who clicks on hyperlinks before they finish reading an article? And who really bothers to finish articles with lots of hyperlinks in almost every sentence. They're ultimately there to back up what I'm saying, but for the most part they're there to make me look smart for having found them and put them there.

The thing that has gradually become more and more unnerving to me is the propensity to gain a feeling that hardly anyone knows what I'm doing or saying when I write one someone's facebook wall or announce something on an event page. But, in reality, that statement is immediately accessible to all of my "friends" on Facebook, as well as anyone on Facebook who is in the Austin, TX network (because I have, perhaps mistakenly, enabled my privacy settings to allow that). There is a stream of warnings and stories in the online popular press and on blogs about people being fired for posting things on Facebook that, were they thinking more prudently, they shouldn't have. One survey found that managers doing background searches on potential hires have had their jobs made much easier through the easy ability to research those candidates on social networking sites, mainly MySpace and Facebook. According to the survey, roughly one third of those searches lead to instant rejections due to the overtly personal content that is often posted on those sites. Additionally, there is little substantial legislation on any level in the United States concerning limiting employers ability to consider Facebook pages and other online information when selecting among job applicants. With this in mind, I am often amazed at the sheer amount of potentially career damaging information people place on Facebook. It is even more amazing to me than the amount of personal contact info that is submitted to the site. I'm guilty of the, but not so much of the first part...although with the ability for anyone to tag anyone in a photo on Facebook, it's becoming harder for anyone to keep personal indiscretions from being documented on the site...even if they are not actually "on Facebook" themselves. However, I have certainly fallen victim to the panoptical nature of Facebook by saying rather personal things on people's public walls, instead of sending them a message. It is easy, it seems, to be lulled into equating public Facebook interaction with private conversations...and this is assisted by the ever more intrusive Facebook "news feed"...which caused a tremendous amount of controversy on the site when it suddenly and without much warning began altering the "friends" of everyone on Facebook to almost every single thing that their other "friends" were doing or saying publicly...even if a lot of those things were done within a context that treated them as at least "semi-private", which naturally adds a level of sensitivity to what is being said, even if it is in all reality completely public among that person's community of friends.

I'm not the first person to bring up the concept of a "participatory panopticon" in reference to the online world. However, the moment I found out what the word meant after seeing it used in an interview, and then looking it up, I immediately thought of Facebook. The word panopticon was derived from the name of a style of prison designed by an English social theorist. Inmates of such a prison are led to believe by the design of the circular building that they are sometimes living in relative privacy, when in reality then can and for the most part would be under constant surveillance. Like someone behind a one-sided mirror (or a suspect who's phone may or may not be bugged by investigators), the prisoners are unable to tell when exactly they are or are not being watched. Clearly, an obvious allusion to Facebook in that a user cannot tell who else is looking, or has looked at, the page on which they are writing some piece of personal information. Likewise, almost anyone in your "networks" (in my case, Texas State University and Austin, TX) may or may not have looked at your page in the last hour. There is no way to tell for sure...you can limited the viewing of your Facebook page to only people who you have accepted as friends on the site, but you still can't tell how they are observing you. Despite this, many people (including myself) often operate on Facebook as if they only people that are cognizant of that they are communicating is they and the person they are communicating with. And, with the expansion of Facebook to older generations who previously avoided much in the way of online social-networking, more and more parents, teachers and bosses will be aware of what their underlings are doing when they're "not around". The fact that interview advice sources have to tell people to take their half-naked drunken pictures off of facebook is a sign, not just of mass stupidity, but of the fact that the panoptical nature of Facebook is much stronger than a lot of people realize. Also, concern exists that Facebook may be (or already is) taking advantage of the taking advantage of the vast store of personal information (age, phone numbers, interests, addresses and the like) that the site's millions of users (including myself) have freely provided to them over the past 5 to 6 years, by using data mining to enhance "targeted" advertisement sales. Some have gone so far as to speculate that Facebook is working with the Department of Homeland Security and the C.I.A. and allowing those agencies to mine their data in order to hunt down subversive and/or terrorist groups in the U.S. These allegations are less substantiated and may be the result of something understandably and psychologically common to those inside of a panopticon, which is paranoia. Still, who knows the limits to which information on the internet is actually safe from outside parties.

The reality is that, in this participatory panopticon in which we have, en mass, placed ourselves, we can never be sure as to who is watching. I'm not the type to lose sleep over this sort of thing, but I do like to point it out because so many go about their daily lives on Facebook as if no one, not even their friends, are watching them at a given point in time. I'm okay with it for now because I am beginning to see this as one of the most fascinating social-changes in the recent history of human life in Planet Earth. And, of course, we are all free to cut away from Facebook at any time. But, there seems to be a protective culture among many facebook users that I have observed that reminds me of my favorite episode of the Simpsons: the one involving the Movementarians, the cult that Homer Simpson signs up his family to join...where anyone who tries to leave is met with a bright-light shining on them and a loud voice saying "you're free to leave at any time, but would you mind telling us why?...". [JS]

Maybe I'm Being Selfish, Maybe I'm Just Scared

The idea of romantic love seems so fictional to me right now.

Every girl I know that I could see myself dating is either taken, or doesn't seem to think I exist...until they are dating someone. What is it that scares them away from me? Or maybe I'm the one who's scared.

And now here comes Valentines Day". The day pushed by corporate America to make up for the post-Christmas lull by guilt tripping people to spend a lot of money on their significant other...because "it's Valentines Day". Or, if you're single you're supposed to find a date to spend money on, even if you never talk to that person again. Or...if you can't find a date you're supposed to feel miserable and less important and less of a human being because you don't have a date on Valentine's Day. It's so fucked up. I've never had a date on Valentines Day. I don't know why, that's just the way things have happen. I've dated people (not all that much but I have), but not on Valentines Day.

People have been telling me that "God has someone out there for me"...and they're very well meaning for doing so...but since that has tortuously failed to ever fully materialize, does that mean I blame God for it? It doesn't make sense. I don't know why I write these notes. I hate them, but I'm so miserable ultimately deep down about it that I can't just talk about it. And I don't think that people understand, although I'm sure they do. I just have a more long-term case with this than most.

I know that "dating around" isn't a solution. I'm afraid that more and more I'm going to look for a solution in temporary stuff that is not satisfying. But then, I'm also incredibly fearful and I need someone to be with who understands that and knows how to calm that fear. I've only had experience with girls that are nerve-wracking to date (but I still cared about them enough to put myself through the emotional roller coaster of hell that it was) because they are so "unsure if this is for real" and then suddenly it's not real and I'm left in the cold. I always feel embarrassed after writing these because I'm just admitting to being a loser...or something...either way my pride takes a hit with each revealing note. I need an outlet for this. I need somebody to love me more than someone who is simply a "great friend" can love me. I need to love someone. I pour so much time into my friends because they're all I have, but I still can't share everything with them.

I thought this would be prolonged when I came back to San Marcos. For some reason, this place seems devoid of girls with which I could actually connect with well enough to have a relationship with...well, those that I know I could are flat out taken...or maybe I've tried with them already and it didn't work. Most of the girls I've met that I could see myself having a chance with (and it being a good match) are in other places. It's sad. It sucks. I don't know what to do. I'm just getting older...and, like for Matthew McConaghey's character noted in Dazed and Confused...the girls "stay the same age". That's good for a creep but not so much for me. I don't know what girls think of me. I don't know anything about how I come off to them. I think they're scared of me, and the only reason I am friends with girls when they're already in relationships is because they're safely in a relationship.

Dammit I hate writing about this. Why am I doing this? I feel like I've wasted years of my life on dwelling on thoughts like this.

Goodnight.

- Jordan