2009 (thankfully behind us) saw the ascendancy of planet Facebook and everybody, yes EVERYBODY was online and getting connected. Facebook has helped people keep in touch, to share overseas experiences, to show our pictures at Angkor Wat and the Pyramids at Giza to friends of friends of friends of friends. It’s the perfect tool for stalking ex partners (not that I would but I’m sure others do), or poking them in the eye. Facebook showed that our lives transcend interesting and fulfilling. It told everyone at once … our lives are FUN!
Surely it was no coincidence that 2009 the Year of the Facebook, was also 2009 - the Year of the Breakup. As much as Facebook brought us together it busted us apart. No more sure way to seal the end of an affair than to change your status from “in a relationship” to “single”. Keep it between you and your other half, you can always take it back. Share the mistake with your mutual friends, exclusive friends, groups and networks and it’s permanent. All you can do is watch your ex move on in pictures. Unless of course he/she banishes you to Facebook wasteland. Facebook reconfigure our most private lives, in the most public way possible.
Perhaps for that very reason, Facebookers were reminded in ‘09 to update their security preferences. Like a virtual VIP nightclub, you could decide who to let in and who to keep out. For a tiny moment in Facebook time everyone got cautious. But not for long. The insatiable appetite for page views, friend requests and event invites would get the better of many, prompting them to throw back the cyber curtains giving away full and unimpeded access to their new and improved lives. Are we being defined by our Facebook fictions, our publicised private successes and failures? It certainly seems that way.
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