{"id":4134,"date":"2012-06-12T01:15:50","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T06:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/?p=4134"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:32:15","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T20:32:15","slug":"getting-wise-about-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2012\/06\/12\/getting-wise-about-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Wise About Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Bill Keller, op-ed columnist for and former executive editor of The New York Times<\/em>, has written an intriguing piece about Facebook: \u201cWising Up to Facebook<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The title reveals the tone of the column: leaning toward critical, but not altogether negative. Keller begins with a predictable blast against Facebook\u2019s approach to privacy (or the lack thereof):<\/p>\n

WHAT\u2019S the difference, I asked a tech-writer friend, between the billionaire media mogul Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> and the billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch?<\/p>\n

When Rupert invades your privacy, my friend e-mailed back, it\u2019s against the law. When Mark does, it\u2019s the future.<\/p>\n

There is truth in that riposte: we deplore the violations exposed in the phone-hacking scandal<\/a> at Murdoch\u2019s British tabloids, while we surrender our privacy on a far grander scale to Facebook<\/a> and call it \u201ccommunity.\u201d Our love of Facebook has been a submissive love.<\/p>\n

Those who have invested their lives in passive print media never seem to like the interactive elements of social media, including the ability for advertising to be tapered to the preferences of the individual. Personally, I don\u2019t mind that the ads on my computer screen actually interest me, whereas ads in newspapers rarely do.<\/p>\n

Keller goes on to lay out the woes of Facebook, including the fact that it underperformed in its recent stock offering. But, just when I was ready to write of Keller as one who has jumped prematurely on the anti-Facebook bandwagon, he steps back from the brink.<\/p>\n

We should be as suspicious of the Facebook-is-over hype as of the original euphoria. Lee Rainie, who studies Internet culture at the Pew Research Center, said that polling does not reflect a significant Facebook backlash so far; the empire is still growing toward a billion users, and more and more people say they use it every day. What has changed is that users say they are more wary of posting private information \u2014 especially when contemplating a job hunt, a college application or a budding romance. And many Facebook users \u2014 a third, according to a new Reuters\/Ipsos poll<\/a> \u2014 are cutting back the time they spend there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe infatuation phase is morphing into a more mature phase,\u201d Rainie told me.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard\u2019s Berkman Center for Internet and Society adds that this reckoning is mutual, and natural, as Facebook grows from a plaything born in a college dorm room into a very serious enterprise. \u201cEven Facebook has to lose its own romantic vision of itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Yes, indeed. We\u2019ve been through this before, haven\u2019t we? About a decade ago, everybody was sure that blogging was going to change the world. Everyone would have a blog and everything would be different because of it. Well, tens of millions of people started blogging and most of them stopped in about two weeks. Blogging turned out to have genuine value (social, economic, political, etc.). But it also didn\u2019t measure up to the hype.<\/p>\n

The same will be true of Facebook, though its current impact seems far more extensive than blogging. Who knows if Facebook per se<\/em> will thrive or even survive? I\u2019m old enough to remember when AOL was going to rule the world. But I have no doubt that social media \u00e0 la Facebook, Twitter, etc. will continue to grow in importance throughout the world after the hype and the anti-hype have passed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
I must admit that I find it sweetly ironic that on the web page where I read Keller's article there were two different ways for me to link to Facebook. I have circled them for your enjoyment. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Keller, op-ed columnist for and former executive editor of The New York Times, has written an intriguing piece about Facebook: \u201cWising Up to Facebook.\u201d\u00a0 The title reveals the tone of the column: leaning toward critical, but not altogether negative. Keller begins with a predictable blast against Facebook\u2019s approach to privacy (or the lack thereof): […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9565,788],"tags":[16953,358,16954],"class_list":["post-4134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-commentary","category-technology","tag-bill-keller","tag-facebook","tag-wisdom"],"yoast_head":"\nGetting Wise About Facebook<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bill Keller, op-ed columnist for and former executive editor of The New York Times, has written an intriguing piece about Facebook: "Wising Up to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2012\/06\/12\/getting-wise-about-facebook\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Getting Wise About Facebook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bill Keller, op-ed columnist for and former executive editor of The New York Times, has written an intriguing piece about Facebook: "Wising Up to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2012\/06\/12\/getting-wise-about-facebook\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mark D. 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