Facebook Stalking: Exposed

Facebook stalking. We all do it, we have done it with friends, and we secretly hope that someone is doing it to our page.

But wait, isn't stalking supposed to be a bad thing? We all hear about the crazy celebrity stalkers who camp outside the celebrity's mansion, follow them to the grocery store, and leave flowers and other special gifts on their front porch. So why would I admit to being a stalker?

Today it seems that "stalking" as it is most casually used around my age group does not come with such a negative stigma. But when we use the word "stalk" it is normally in conjunction with the online social network Facebook- i.e. "Facebook stalking." But let me clarify: Facebook stalking is not just what creepy perverts do alone in their basement at 2 in the morning (shudder). Rather it is what the average Jane does when she comes home after class as she is perusing Facebook. She reads her news feed, sees that Bobby Smith posted pictures of his trip to Cabo and then clicks on the album. She looks through every picture. She visits the profiles of the other boys who were tagged in the album. She then goes back to Bobby's profile and looks through his other albums. And then all the photos that were tagged of him. Pretty soon, 20 minutes later she has clicked through all 400 of the tagged pictures of Bobby and seen all 7 of his albums. Does she feel like a psycho or a total creep for exploring Bobby's profile for a full 20 minutes of her day? No. Yes, she thinks "wow, that’s pretty pathetic I just went through all his photos" but she does not feel like she’s done anything different from anyone else.

I personally have done the same thing. I have been bored in my room, exploring Facebook, clicked on someone's photo album and then proceeded to go through ALL of their photos. Yes, it sounds pathetic when I look back on it, but I am not that troubled by it.

This topic I want to explore more through my research project: what is happenning to our notions of privacy? Why do we feel that it is now normal to explore every minutia of a person's life? It is out there for us to browse through. So it has to be normal and healthy...right?

More to come.

-Status