Facebook status updates spell instant drama

In this age of widespread Internet connectivity, “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things” is no longer a philosophical concern. Nor is it merely Dirk Gently’s method of holistically solving “the whole crime and finding the whole person.” If you didn’t get that reference, you can have an answer via Google search in four seconds—probably on your cell phone.

In the US and most of western Europe, feats of on-the-go googling are not uncommon—in fact, they are the norm. This ability has positively reshaped the way people study, shop, dine out, and do business. However, there are also pernicious side effects of near instantaneous global dissemination of information, especially when one can easily do so with a measure of anonymity.

Gossip no longer travels at the speed of word of mouth. Each web-connected computer can churn out anything from wild speculations to outright lies at the speed of thought. Holy gossip column Batman—Perez Hilton, we have a problem.

Indeed, the ilk of Perez Hilton is something of a problem itself. But sites like his only report on celebrity gossip. Science as well as polls conducted by the Pew Research Center, have proven only 50% of people read celebrity gossip 90% of the time. The world will not truly be in trouble until any average Joe or Jane has the ability to report thoroughly uninteresting small town gossip to an inattentive audience of millions. Oh wait, there is that thing called Facebook.

As you already know—and if not, google it—everybody and his mother has Facebook. By which I mean, my mother has Facebook, and I’m not certain I want her to get to know me in that way.

While there is nothing particularly incriminating in my photos or on my wall, it is the type of stuff that I only want to share with the most intimate of complete strangers, and not with a woman who has known me since the moment I was born. I’m sure you can relate.

Anyway, the point I’m tactlessly dancing around is anyone I am likely to meet, especially on a college campus, can go home and add me to her “friends” on Facebook. With this tiny effortless act, the stage is set for disaster.

Unlike the above-mentioned gossip site, Facebook allows one to casually read his “friends’” status updates and reply with witty comments.

It is logical to expect a friendly exchange of such daily minutiae as, “I just went to the bathroom,” followed by the timeless, “Hey, awesome, me too!”

What is far more likely to happen though is a posting of something totally inane and harmless, which then receives a long list of comments from misunderstanding and surprisingly unsupportive “friends.”

For example, a friend of mine—let’s call her TG—recently posted “relationships are overrated?” as her status. I find nothing wrong with this as a status, and assume she was either befuddled by the statement herself or seeking others’ opinions on their own relationships.

In less than 45 minutes TG received comments in varying degrees of sympathy, sarcasm, and I-told-you-so from 11 people. All of these people made the assumption that this status-question meant something about TG’s own relationship. Meanwhile, it was clear that none of them had done his or her homework in the matter as TG’s relationship status still read “In a relationship.” Everyone with Facebook ought to know that the end all, be all of dating, wedding, and divorcing is making it “Facebook official.”

After an hour of responding, correcting false assumptions, and worrying herself half to death about what sort of offline rumors this debate might have started, TG finally deleted the status update and all the comments appended to it. The problem was mostly solved, even though a few people still asked about it in person the next day.

I’m sure the more grammatically inclined out there are thinking TG could have written more clearly. And indeed, she could have written “Do you think relationships are over-rated?” Sadly, even this is likely to be misconstrued as a cry for help or an invitation for advice from friends, family, and guys hoping that her relationship is in strife and that they might step in and be her new boyfriend.

The only thing is just to stay off Facebook, and not post any status updates at all, which I myself will definitely do—as soon as I update my status.