Facebook the Real-Time BBS

Facebook‘s changed a lot from the online university student community it was in 2004.  It used to be that you joined, selected what classes you were taking–or a bunch of silly, fake classes as was the case for some of us–and then found other people in your classes to ask for homework assignments.  Clearly, it’s transitioned into a social application for everyone. I still remember the outcry when it was announced that Facebook would open itself up to people not currently enrolled in university, “oh my gosh, everyone will be able to see me and stalk me now… even, gasp, non-college-students!”  The same outcry that’s gone up every time something has radically changed at Facebook.  I’ve been waiting all this time, as someone who’s been active in “online communities” of sorts since online communities consisted of dialing your 2400 baud modem into a Bulletin Board System and leaving a note for whomever dialed in next, to watch Facebook (and others) initiate people into a realm that used to be for enthusiasts only.  It’s funny to hear people call fads, like “25 random things about me” or “use song titles to describe yourself,”  Facebook fads, when I remember taking part in those via email chain letters in 1995, and then again in blog posts in a sort of redux at the height of blogging-as-personal-journal in 2002.

I grew up on internet communication.  I was reared in AOL chat rooms and was typing over 100wpm by the time I hit high school and the accompanying nights on AIM.  I was never enthusiastic about emailing as a form of communication in high school because it was too slow–I went for the instant gratification of talking to 3 or 4 friends at a time via IM rather than having to wait for email or figure out how to call, and then 3-way call, and then 4-way call and then…  I’ve kept every chat log of every conversation from every chatting application spanning my entire online history and I’ve often mused about how the collection constitutes a relatively complete history of myself from early high school to now–all the social anxieties and lost loves, all the failed plans and great ideas, etc. contained in a few megabytes of what essentially amounts to internet CB chatter.

I was thinking about all that interpersonal communication while perusing my Facebook feed–which has, of late, turned into a giant mass of everyone’s five favorite beers, and albums, and dogs, and foreign dictators, and beers… did I say that one?–and it occurred to me that people use Facebook to communicate in an absurdly broad and general manner, and yet still essentially passively.  I’m fairly overwhelmed by imagining what it would have taken 6 or 7 years ago to invite 300 people you know to do something–you wouldn’t be likely to have all those email addresses, or want to post hand bills–in an equally passive way.  Now you see someone post on a friend’s wall, “I’m coming to Chicago soon! Let’s hang out!” and there are 15 responses from other Chicagoans that know the poster directly or indirectly and want to get involved, and another 400 people who read that post and don’t respond.

Facebook is many things, but it’s not a blog like the one I kept in early college to which I posted things and expected responses (mostly in person) from close friends only.  No, the similarities run closer to the BBS systems I, curious about the enthusiast crowd at large, dropped in on in middle school; no matter how personal or trivial the information you decide to plop down on Facebook’s panorama, it’s inconceivable that no one–or only people with whom you’re close, or only enthusiasts–will discover that information, be it your five favorite movies starring Pauly Shore, or whether you’re still having morning sickness in your 12th week, or what bar you want to go to tonight.  Of course everything you post to Facebook is a reflection of your own personal tastes, but you do so in such a passive manner that it’s more like angling for interest than it is actively proposing an insight.  You never know who’s going to respond to any random comment you might make, but the atmosphere almost expects comments to be random–the feedback from the 400 people you know and sort of know isn’t going to be particularly more positive if you post something creative or exciting that you are personally doing versus simply posting a status update about how you love coffee and are going to to drink some right now because you’re so sleepy and it’s morning oh and thank goodness it’s Friday.

I love comparing what trolling a chatroom was like in 1993 with what trolling Facebook’s feed is like now: it’s an excellent comparison of the active versus passive nature of internet communication. Facebook provides a captive audience under public scrutiny, and the psychology of that is something that’s about ready to be explored.