The World Wide Web is an amazing resource. In just a few short decades, it has completely transformed the way we think and live our lives. In the process, it has spawned a new vocabulary that has integrated itself into everyday speech. One such neologism bugs me every time I see or hear it: the insidious “Facebook stalking.”
Now, if you’re like most of the people I know, you see nothing wrong with this phrase. After all, what kind of person would have the gall to look at other people’s Facebook posts? How dare someone even consider doing such a thing! Stalker!
Or so the thought process normally goes. I find there to be several flaws in this line of reasoning. First of all is the complete trivialization of stalking. Merriam-Webster defines it as “the act or crime of willfully and repeatedly following or harassing another person in circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to fear injury or death especially because of express or implied threats.” While I am certainly not an expert in the law, I feel that looking at a person’s status updates doesn’t fall under any part of the preceding definition.
Well, maybe people don’t mean that kind of stalking. But the words we use are more powerful than we often realize. Using “stalking” in this manner is not much different from saying you have OCD when you don’t or describing someone else as bipolar when they are not. In those cases, it is unjust to those who have actually been diagnosed with those conditions. Similarly, there are actual cases of stalking occurring on Facebook and elsewhere; lumping your friend looking at your profile picture together with ill-intentioned stalkers is plainly wrong.
“Facebook stalking” is more ironic in nature. Facebook was built on the principles of making the world “more open and transparent,” as well as promoting “openness and transparency by giving individuals greater power to share and connect.” Mark Zuckerberg (and company) didn’t set out to give people their own private profile on the Internet, where it would sit forever, destined to never be seen by human eyes. Rather, just the opposite—Facebook wants people to share everything that is going on their lives. That is why every time we log-in, we are cheerfully prodded with a query that goes something like, “What’s on your mind?” But more importantly, Facebook wants us to see what our friends are thinking and doing as well. That way, we can form stronger connections and build more lasting relationships, in theory.
Keeping all of that in mind, it seems puzzling that people would be surprised by someone responding to something they shared, liked or posted on their Facebook timeline. After all, isn’t that what Facebook was designed to facilitate? What is even more puzzling is that people will occasionally go so far as to get offended that someone mentioned something they saw on their Facebook profile. If that seems illogical, it is. And herein lies the contradiction—we can’t expect to publicly share something with all of our friends and have none of them notice it. We also have no right to complain when someone responds to something we’ve shared—if you shared it, then you have to be the one to take responsibility for your actions and repercussions.
Of course, there’s a simple explanation for these mystifying reactions. People generally aren’t expecting people to comment on the goings-on of their Facebook profiles. Thus, when confronted with such a scenario, they are temporarily bewildered and confused. In such a mental state, people often fall back upon that classic defense mechanism—name-calling. Viewed from this lens, “Facebook stalking” starts to make more sense—stalking is generally seen as a bad thing, so if someone is called a stalker, they will probably stop doing the thing that merits such a description. Also at play is the constant fear that people will disagree with what we said on Facebook; hence, there is regression to child-like behavior, even for the most mature college kids.
The inherent problem behind all of this twisted logic is simple: the expectation that no one will respond to anything we post on Facebook. If we didn’t want anyone to view something we’ve posted, then we shouldn’t post in the first place.
Our expectations say a lot about the state of our digital society as a whole. The diagnosis is poor in the Facebook experiment—people simply aren’t ready to share their lives with others. Or, rather, we are—but only if we are not judged for what we choose to share of our lives. In other words, people want Facebook to be an echo chamber—they want all of the good things that come with sharing (other people recognizing ideas and experiences) and none of the “bad” things that accompany it (people criticizing or simply responding).
This is an issue that will only be resolved when we learn to identify our own hypocrisy and address it, when we learn that it’s okay to be wrong in sharing our flawed lives and when we learn that some of our “Facebook stalkers” are simply taking advantage of the opportunities of the social media frontier.
Ben Zhang is a Trinity senior. His column, "human foibles," runs on alternate Thursdays.
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