MySpace or Yours
Written by Claire Fletcher
It began as an innocent visit to the Adsetts Centre, my aim: To carry out some lengthy research on the poetic works of William Wordsworth. The outcome? Well, after forty five minutes of profiles, photos and wall comments I realised I had made no progress in unravelling the mysteries of Wordsworth’s poetry. I had however, made a substantial development in the getting-to-know-you process with my latest catch.Having already covered the usual likes and dislikes I was able to move straight on to the really interesting stuff: Where he’d been last night, who he was with and crucially…what were his plans for this evening. But this is where it becomes shameful. I gained all my information through a means which had me looking over my shoulder, shiftily ensuring that the person whose Facebook profile I was now scrutinizing wasn’t sat near by.
I’m sure most of us have been there, your on the net so it seems worthwhile to briefly check your Facebook or MySpace page. But, it’s a fatal trap. What seems like a simple enquiry as to who this girl writing on your boyfriend’s wall is, soon results in you viewing their best friend’s boyfriend’s cousin’s photos from last Christmas.
This was the predicament I found myself in, staring at the profile of…well who knows, and no matter how many times I clicked on the back button, my own profile just couldn’t be found. Am I part of a new found breed of sad cyber-stalkers? Or have I naively become immersed in the online social network phenomena’s that are Facebook and MySpace? For the sake of my dignity, I’ll settle for the latter.
The overwhelming statistics would certainly indicate that the online communities of MySpace and Facebook are reaching out to millions of people around the world. MySpace maintains eighty percent of visits to online social networking websites so it is not surprising that it boasts a population of over 154 million and with new users signing up at an average rate of 300 000 a day it is currently the third most popular website in the USA. Facebook is hot on the tails of this phenomenal success; just two years after its creation in 2004 it had gained 7.4 million registered users in colleges in the US alone.
Security and control of the sites are generally pretty good, however, it is really left up to the individual user how much personal information they wish to reveal to the world. Whether you decide to keep your profile private enables you to choose whether or not strangers can visit it. And this is where the fun begins…any information,
There’s something not quite right about that 70 year old man from Morocco reading up on the day to day goings on of your life..
photo’s or comments posted on your profile can be viewed by anyone else in the world (as long as they are also a registered user). There’s something not quite right about that 70 year old man from Morocco reading up on the day to day goings on of your life, and what’s worse, he’s got the photographical aids made readily available…creepy.
But, who am I to talk? I have used both MySpace and Facebook to my own personal gain; a charge which many of my peers are also guilty of. In one case, a friend of mine got chatting to guy on a night out only to discover, when the beer goggles had cleared, that she had spotted him on Facebook (through a friend of a friend etc.) and already knew where he lived, who he was friends with and that, coincidentally, they shared the same birthday. The problems arose when on their first date, it was a case of having to constantly fake the look of curious surprise when covering the usual polite small talk. One minor slip up and her shameful stalker tendencies could risk exposure…
On to somebody with no shame whatsoever, my house mate started receiving messages on Facebook from somebody who he wrongly assumed was a nice bloke who had taken a liking to his profile.
It wasn’t long before cyber stalking became actual stalking.
Obviously flattered and deluded by his façade of being a ‘normal’ bloke, they, much to my house mate’s regret, swapped numbers. It wasn’t long before cyber stalking became actual stalking. My housemate frequently received messages from the shameless one in question commenting on what he was wearing and what he was doing. He was watching. And probably still is.
If these risks weren’t bad enough, the chance of gaining such readily available information on your character and lifestyle has caught the attention of employers. So before you put up the photos from last nights bar crawl, consider this: are they suitable for the eyes of your potential boss?
It seems we are faced with a catch 22: As these networks are expanding vastly throughout the world, is it time to limit who can read up on our lives and go private? Or, as students with a never ending appetite for socialising do we continue as we are, making new friends, keeping track of our old ones and all the while taking the risk of bagging ourselves a stalker, or worse…becoming one?