Nancy Scola: Can It Still Be Facebook If You’re Mom’s On It?
Scola’s key bit:
“Take this for example. Facebook has a feature…Enter in your login name and password for your Gmail, AOL, Yahoo!, or Hotmail accounts and Facebook will spider through your address book to tell you who you know already has a profile. And with one click, a note is sent to your contact asking if you might be Facebook friends.
If they happen to be in my same regional network — so for me, the one for little old New York City — then bam!, they’ve got instant access to my profile.
With that, Facebook me is the me I am to my entire real world address book. (And with Gmail, that’s everyone I’ve ever emailed.) I’m no longer protected by the narrow confines of the organization I work for. It’s almost too much for me to take, to open myself to inspection by every possible future employer/professor/friend/enemy in the world.”
More on this context issue here.