If you are a FB user, I heartily applaud your decision to use this free, democratic service that is open to everyone in the entire world. I esp. applaud people like my daughter-in-law Nicole Deming who lovingly shares her adventures - and photos - of being a young mother.
Despite all the privacy slips, I think FB's management is 100 percent devoted to tight privacy standards and not sharing email lists with advertisers.
As a nearly 65-year-old woman, who lists her age on FB, I give FB and my readers a few vital bits of info about myself. Also, if I read a terrific article, say, in the NY Times, I will 'like it' on FB. I am, unwittingly, sending out certain bytes of info about myself.
Why do I do this? So my 99 'friends' can share my joy. And of course so FB can continue creating a click-by-click profile on me.
Look, they're a business, and this is what they do. A small price to pay for being able to see what my daughter Sarah is doing at her Writers Retreat in France in the middle of the night.
Why then haven't I gone whole hog to create a thorough FB page about myself? Easy. I've got my blog. How many self-promotional places does one girl need who is not a movie star or running for office?
When I click onto FB I immediately go into I'm-being-watched mode. Could this be a holdover from my manic-psychotic days? Or, as I suspect, is it simply an adult reaction to knowing 'they' are monitoring my every move.
Well, know this, FB: I go straight to the 'space' - what's the correct word for this? - of my daughter/law so I can see pix of my granddaughter Grace Catherine. Nicole should only know the immense pleasure she's given me by publishing these photos, esp. during my sciatica agony.
Now here's where FB makes their money. As we know, targeted ads are directed to us in the extreme right-hand panel of the FB screen.
An insulting barrage of stay-youthful products greets me every time I click onto FB. Try as I might, I can't train my eyes to not-see these disgusting ads. AARP is there too along w/other insurers who want my M'care business.
It's all done electronically of course. Some brilliant Silicon Valley youngster comes up with an advertising formula. And it better not be static! FB users are active people. Our lives change in tiny ways every single day...and FB may benefit from that!
Needless to say I have never clicked on any of the advertisers, tho once I made the mistake of deleting one of the ads.
FB, always concerned with my feelings, actually asked me something like, Have we offended you?
I was so shocked by this human response I could think of nothing to do and wanted to immediately exit this needless emotional probing by the HAL of social networking. I hit "X" for "get me the hell out of here."
Remember the story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wanted to be a real boy? Is that what we're coming to, Mr Kupferberg?
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