Facebook, Centering the Margin

Imagine yourself living in a circle, with you in the center and your loved ones round you; those people round the center are the ones who occupy most of your thoughts and time, they are the ones you share your life with. As you move away from the center there are people you meet frequently but do not occupy a central position in your life, like your colleagues at work, a far relative of yours, etc. On the edge of the circle you’ll find people who are not of any importance to you: someone you met in the subway and had a smalltalk with, the salesman in the store next door, etc.

Now imagine what Facebook does: you meet someone in the subway, you talk with them for a while, then this person asks about your name and adds you on Facebook! You might think this is cool at first, you are gonna increase the number of your Facebook friends, have more comments and likes on your posts, be invited to more events. Till here this is great, if what you share on Facebook is general news and information. But what happens on Facebook is quite the opposite, people share on it everything that happens to them without filtration, even the most tiny details of their lives. Even with the privacy setting you will still find your life available to the public.

So what happens on Facebook is that you take people from the edge of your circle and put the in the center, sharing with them what you should share only with your loved ones. This leaves you with two options, either you delete all people whom you find unnecessary on your Facebook friend list, or you pay more attention to what you share in your profile.

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