Facebook Lurking

I'm mostly a lurker when it comes to facebook and blogs. I like to read them, but I don't comment much or post much of my own.

Sometimes I start feeling just slightly voyeuristic. But these people put the stuff out there for me to read, why should it matter than I read it?

Yesterday I was having a discussion with someone, and they mentioned that it felt odd to them too. Said that running into someone at church and knowing all these details about their life, when they had not spoken to them, was just a bit uncomfortable.

It was actually uncomfortable enough to me that I quit reading causal acquaintance's blogs.
But then I started reading facebook updates regularly, and feeling equally uncomfortable. (Wish I could figure out how to follow just family members, without having to read everyones updates, or "un"friend someone.)

I remember Kari Bushman talking about what it was like to be a well known radio personality. She mentioned that usually when you meet someone, you gradually build a relationship in a back and forth interchange, "what's your name? where do live?" For her, when she met someone, they already knew all those details about her, and felt like they had a relationship with her. But she knew nothing about them, and it made it very lopsided to even have a conversation with someone.

That's what is going on with facebook and blogs and such. The person posting is a radio personality, putting it out there, with no way of knowing who is tuned in. We are the audience listening to whatever they decided to tell us. We can call in and make a comment, but it isn't required.

So when we run into them in real life....it's that's same way we feel when we run into a local celebrity, uncertain if we should even initiate a conversation.

If we broadcast ourselves, it is still just as lopsided, except that now we are the celebrity. No wonder it is all a little awkward.

This broadcast nature means the subtle give and take of regular conversations is missing.

As a speech therapist I wonder about this development. Texting, IMing, email, all reduce our face time with each other, but those at least preserve a give and take interactive transaction.

I'm not that comfortable with face to face or phone conversations.I tend to keep my opinions to myself more than most. These developments are likely to compound that problem.

So I wonder what are the long term effects of this lopsided type of interaction on society as a whole, and conversation in general?

And yet, I post this rumination on my blog!