Facebook FatigueLoaded Sep 30th 2011
Posted by Meg Daintith
Facebook’s newest wave of content-partner integration with the likes of Spotify enables sharing to reach yet another level.
But what if we’re a bit tired of sharing? What if we want to be left alone online to peruse and browse and click and buy without Zuckerberg’s friends knowing every nook and cranny of our online behaviour? Well forget it – it seems that privacy is a concept that simply does not exist online.
There is no escape. Whether we like it or not our online footprint grows ever deeper the more we engage with our interests, or leisure, our work or our pleasure. Okay so this integration business is all smooth as silk at the backend, and we never have to trouble our eyes with an ugly algorithm. Simply click the innocent ‘thumbs up’ and no harm done.
It’s true I cannot prove to you that any harm is done, and maybe there isn’t. But that is exactly the issue – we don’t even know how or where or when any of our online selves will be used for or against us one day. Will health insurance companies know we Googled depression? I’m just sayin’…..
For now I will probably join the many and simply ‘like’ the latest Kings of Leon news or share a favourite song. Like many, as I log in to another online store I will be half-aware that someone, someday soon will use that information. Until then, it looks like we will have to increasingly look through a Facebook-shaped window to see the online world, and maybe, just maybe, we will all get a bit fed up with it.
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