Our Many Faces

Dear reader, you are, through the reading of this blog, witnessing one of my multitudes. And before you point the finger and laugh, know that much of the population is just like me...having multitudes, but not the distinctly clinical condition, multiple personality disorder. Having multitudes is the sign of a healthy and active sociological life.

However, the ability to possess multitudes has been threatened for many people, in the form of the pop sensation - Facebook (and MySpace, etc). In a funny paradox, the freeing qualities of the internet age, are in this case, a constraint. A constraint on our ability to have multiple faces to the different parts/sides of our lives. Our projected online image is known as "unitary identity" by the psychologists and sociologists, and is what all online friends take away as defining "you", or "I".

Facebook is historical (record of all you've thought, done, etc), it's unbordered (all see approx the same information about you), and it's comprehensive - across all slices of your personality (except where one of your social groups isn't part of Facebook - now at 175 million active users). Therefore, our ability to reinvent ourselves, or carve out a new life is hampered by the fact that nearly all our friend groups already have access to who we entirely were yesterday or today. In the same way, we can't project different images of ourselves to different groups, as all of the groups have been pulled closer to a unitary identification of you or I.

I recently read that MySpace was launched specifically to avoid the limits of unitary identity - built on the tenet that people could create whatever personality they liked, and the wildly customized MySpace pages out there are proof positive. Even the "Fakesters" which the grandaddy social networking site Friendster would not allow, were welcomed with open arms at MySpace. MySpace didn't even verify email addresses, instead seeing itself as the place where everyone could be an MTV rock star. And that's probably why MySpace now looks much like a pre-teen's bedroom wall, and invariably without controls, criminals were attracted. Not good.

Facebook recently picked up on this constraining aspect, and recognized it as a potential limiter in its popularity - a real threat to the wildfire spread it has enjoyed to date. Addressing this, Facebook went through a major overhaul lately, now allowing "friends lists" which can be used to control what information is displayed to selected group(s) of friends. The next step is differentiated parallel status updates: to close friends, "Stuck in a boring meeting with ernie ego"; to work colleagues, "All day meeting on topic X"; to family, "wishing I were home with you".

You can likely think of many examples for the above. Hopefully the paradox of social networking sites can be resolved without becoming overly complex and difficult to contribute to. I find it hard enough to keep the different aspects of my life in order, let alone the documentation of it for the many groups with whom I'm friends. Facebook has a difficult social challenge in front of them, as the wildfire spread has already seen a major slowdown - keeping it easy while allowing for fine grain control.

It's not an easy task, but one that Facebook will need to work out on their own, as I'm busy with a difficult work meeting at the moment. Or am I actually having fun unloading my brain, typing away at a blog? Or am I missing and thinking of someone? ...D, all of the above :)