To Google Friends Or Not To Google, That Is the Question 117
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Henry Alford writes that in an ideal world, we would all use Google to be better friends by having better recall and to research our new friends and acquaintances to get to know them better. 'It's perfectly natural and almost always appropriate,' says social anthropologist Kate Fox. 'Obviously, one is always going to have to be discreet when talking about what you've found. But our brains haven't changed since the Stone Age, and humans are designed to live in small groups in which everyone knows one another. Googling is an attempt to recreate a primeval, preindustrial pattern of interaction.' But the devil is in the details. If we tell a new friend that we've read her LinkedIn entry or her wedding announcement, it probably won't be perceived as trespassing, as long we bear no ulterior motives. If we happen to reveal that we've also read her long-ago abandoned blog about her cat, we're more likely to be seen as chronically bored than menacing. 'I'm so baffled by this idea that we're not supposed to Google people,' says Dean Olsher. 'Why would there be a line? Like everyone else is allowed to know something but I'm not?' But doesn't taking the google shortcut to a primeval, preindustrial pattern of recognition sometimes rob encounters of their inherent mystery or even get us in trouble? Tina Jordan, an executive in book publishing who has the same name as a former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, says, 'I typically tell any blind dates before I meet them that they probably shouldn't Google my name, otherwise they'll be sorely disappointed when they meet me.'"
Re:Getting it wrong... (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus a person on the web is unfiltered and fake at the same time. People I'm friends with in real life wouldn't be my friend if I based it on their stupid Facebook post.
Common names (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
The alternative, in the case of friends whose preferred form of communication is Facebook, is to use Facebook exclusively for actual friends. I don't add people I met online (and rarely even know their real names). I don't add friends-of-friends. I don't even add relatives of friends unless I know the relative personally. I don't add people I have encountered briefly in the recent past. I don't add people I went to school with and now don't remember their names or anything about them. With two or three exceptions, I don't add people I have never met in person. I don't add people who work at the same company I do (some 2000+ employees worldwide) unless I actually work with them on a regular basis.
The result? I actually know and care about and trust the people I call friends on Facebook, and have no trouble calling them friends in the classic sense. Facebook, like any other tool, can be used to improve your life or destroy it. Unfortunately most people can't tell the difference and allow it to do more harm than good.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
The information you find on Google is hardly trustworthy anyway. If you google my name you will find some religious nut job spouting rubbish that I would never endorse. Due to having a name that is associated with that religion though you would be forgiven for assuming it was me if you were a potential employer.
Re:Common names (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. The only legitimate reasons I can think of for googling an acquaintance is if you're about to enter a business relationship or you're a woman going on a date with a man you don't know well. I'd never google a friend's name unless they told me to to look at a link (and that has happened before).
Re:Return to pre-20th century accountability (Score:5, Interesting)
It appears you're trying to make my point for me.
Exactly. Most people don't care about anonymity and thus it has always been rare. It was less rare over the last few hundred years but it's always been uncommon.
Uncommon. Not impossible. Big difference.
Illustrations? Here's something random - a quote from Tom Horn:
That's just one example of the fact that it's always been possible, even in small societies where everybody knew everybody, to re-invent yourself and leave your old persona behind.
Changing your surroundings, your people, and achieving anonmymity has always been possible. It's just never seemed particularly worth the trouble except for a few folks who *really* don't fit in.
Thus the stage is set for today where not enough people understand or value anonymity enough to fight for it despite the fact that it's on the verge of ceasing to exist, a sea-change in the human condition brought about, uniquely in this age, by technology.
I love tech because I know how powerful it is. At the same time, it's something easily perverted to nefarious purposes that will be damn near impossible to resist once they take hold. I find your throw-up-your-hands-and-surrender attitude (to paraphrase, "Anonymity is a historical blip. When it's gone, no big deal") sets my teeth particularly on edge this morning. I think you're wrong but I apologize if I've been a bit rude in the way I expressed that conclusion.
At least I didn't quote LBJ to make my point; I'm not going to be that much of an ass.