Nobody Has Sex (Thinking About Facebook Norms)

I don't have my own Facebook but I am aware of what happens in the network of Tina, my wife. She keeps me in the loop of things that friends and family post on her Facebook. So I see lots of pictures from people we know. Given our stage of life, it's mostly pictures of everyday family life. We see pictures of kids and pets and have a window into where people go out to eat and what they cook at home. There's also some political chatter and quite a bit of social commentary.

What is missing from these Facebook posts? Any talk about sex. It seems, unfortunately, that no one in my wife's social network is having sex. To be more precise, no one ever says anything about sex. One night my wife joked "I'm going to put on Facebook, 'Going to bed, but not going to sleep'" and we cracked up because even the slightest subtle reference to the possibility of engaging in sexual activity would breach Facebook norms (at least in her network).

I will go ahead and guess that talking about sex is not taboo in everybody's social network. Surely there are folks who air out their sexual laundry on Facebook. But for those who belong to a network where the norm is to avoid any reference to sexual activity, it would make for a good breaching experiment to post "I have the best sex life ever" or "Haven't had sex in forever" or really anything that has to do with having sex.

This post is not an awkward invitation to tell your Facebook friends about your sex life. Rather, this topic is a reminder that life is an information game, to paraphrase Erving Goffman from the introduction of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. We share information about ourselves but not all our information. This is part of the process of face-to-face interaction. It's also the case on Facebook--where we tell people our story but not our full story--a point effectively conveyed here by Nathan Jurgenson.

Facebook Is Television

I'll just write, free form, without hyperlinks or images. I'm writing to write, to write out loud, and writing instead of watching TV or watching Twitter. I'll write for a while, until my 2-year-old wakes up from a nap. He might nap for an hour, or two, so that gives me time to write and wonder.

What comes to mind first? I guess I've been wanting to say something about Facebook. I want to say something about why I'm glad I didn't have Facebook in college, kind of a response to this piece by Nathan Jurgenson that I like. I know, I said no hyperlinks, but that's only one. Jurgenson makes a lot of good points in the post. It would be nice if we weren't so worried about our image, and if we weren't so scared of our "digital dirt" (a phrase he uses that I really like), but how can we not be afraid of our digital dirt? So many  people in this world are so quick to judge, to use information against you, to hold you accountable to the "worst" parts of your past. I guess I just wanted to briefly and simply say that people are judgmental. Jurgenson asks:

What if more people wore past identities more proudly? We could erode the norm of identity consistency, a norm no one lives up to anyways, and embrace change and growth for its own sake.

That's a really good question. And maybe he's right. And maybe people aren't as judgmental as I think. Sometimes we want to be judged by our best work, not by our more foolish and immature moments, and I think that's partly where the "Glad I didn't have Facebook in high school" (or college) statement comes from.

* * * * * * * *

Now comes the part when I refer to something I said in Introduction to Sociology last semester. I was talking with students about Facebook, and comparing Facebook with television, and then I blurted out "Facebook is television." I don't know if anybody has already said that, or written about it. Please alert me if someone has. I don't want to steal someone else's idea (or plagiarize). It's getting impossible to be original in this day and age. There are too many smart people writing smart things. Well, "Facebook is television" is a pretty simple thought anyway. Facebook, like television, is something that's on. Remember when Bruce Springsteen wrote "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" Sugar, that's hyperlink number two. A blogger can't help himself. Anyway, the Springsteen song is from 1992. We were already complaining about all the crap that's on. Now it's three million channels and nothing is on. I think that's a reason people complain about Facebook: much of the time, there's nothing on. That's not to disrespect our friends and family members who post pictures of their kids or their dinner. But how many times does one want to see a rerun of somebody else's cute kid? How many times can you watch a rerun of How I Met Your Mother? (What's up with that show, I can't figure it out for the life of me. I've never made it through an episode, so I must be referring to people who watch it a lot).

Well, you get the point. There's a lot on. There's a lot to consume. Same for Twitter. Which is why I wonder if the term "backchannel" should just be "channel." The hashtag lets us check out what's going on behind the scenes (or, should I say, what's going on in the scene). It's surfing through Twitter and seeing what's on.

Okay, I haven't said anything about producing content. I recognize we are producers-consumers these days, but I tend to focus on consumption. A serious question: what does the research tell us about the ratio of consuming to producing? Is it accurate to say that most people consume way more than they produce? I'm inclined to think from the perspective of a consumer. Maybe it's because I consume a lot. Yes, I produce too, but not as much as I consume. Honestly, I need to study up on prosumption. Maybe I give too much attention to being a consumer.

In any case, thinking as a consumer, I think there's something to the notion that "Facebook is television." Facebook, Twitter, television, YouTube, Vine (first impression: Vine is pretty cool) give us a million of channels to watch (and gripe about). Forgive me for all the parentheses. I probably use too many when I write. And I know we're not always griping about what's on. We enjoy much of what we watch. What we watch makes us laugh and makes us feel a whole bunch of emotions. "A whole bunch of emotions" is a badly written phrase. It's a sign that I've been writing for 42 minutes without a break.

So I will take a quick break to grab a drink of water.

I'm back after a few minutes. I ended up exchanging a few text messages with my wife.

Well, I'm going to give this post one quick proofread and wrap it up. Mack might surprise me and wake up any moment. And by the time I come back to this post, I might just delete it or decide not to post it.

I did some proofreading and minor editing. I've been at this for an hour now. I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time, but the actual writing and editing took one hour. So know that it's not totally thought through. So why post it? Why not sit on it longer and make it better? Well, I told you, I just wanted to write out loud for a while.

E-Mail and Conversations

Sherry Turkle's opinion piece, "The Flight From Conversation," was published more than a month ago in The New York Times. Her main point is that nothing substitutes for face-to-face conversation. Alongside Twitter and Facebook, she mentions e-mail as a form of communication that pales in comparison to face-to-face conversation. She says that when we communicate using technology, we do so in a faster, less nuanced manner than when we converse in person. In face-to-face conversations, she says, we are more attentive to other people's viewpoints.

I've thought about her piece a lot since reading it last month. Today, it occurred to me that my best friendship has been sustained by e-mail. My best friend and I graduated from college in 1994. Since then, we have almost always lived 500 miles apart. We get together in person a few times a year. Between visits, we rely on e-mail to stay in touch. Neither of us like to use the phone. Never have. But we both like e-mail and have consistently used it in the course of our friendship. Sometimes the messages consist of frivolous one-liners and not-so-important updates. Other times they have included serious exchanges filled with deep meaning. There are things that are hard for me to say to anyone's face, for fear of being judged for what I have to say or how I say it. E-mail has allowed me to say what I want to say in a careful and measured way. Turkle sees this as a problem. Human relationships are messy and we use technology to clean them up, she says. To that I would say without e-mail, there are things I never would have said to anyone in any way. In college and graduate school I hid a lot of my thoughts in diaries. I've opened up since then, but not totally. There are lots of thoughts I choose not to share. E-mail allows me to carefully share some of those sensitive thoughts. I don't see this as being shortchanged. Nor do I want to pick up the phone every time I want to share a book recommendation with my friend or ask him for a movie recommendation. Occasionally he sends me a hilarious account of something that happened to him. Then I can read it 2-3 times because it's such a great story and I get to enjoy it more than once.

Aside from describing the centrality of e-mail in an important friendship, I want to briefly say something about conversational skills. Being a college professor, most of my daily conversations are with students. Unlike me, they grew up with cell phones. For many of them, Facebook is a vital part of their lives. And yes, they are experts at texting. I also find they possess good conversational skills. I regularly speak with students face-to-face. I am generally impressed by how they carry on conversations. They send me e-mails too, but it's not a flight from conversation. Turkle is right in saying that human relationships are rich. I think that all of the ways we communicate make our relationships rich. We talk, we text. We text while we talk. There are so many ways to enjoy each other. I like a good conversation as much as anyone. But in my life I've found that good conversations are hard to find. So I'm happy to connect with people in any way that I can.

"Living by the Book" - A Video about Facebook

This is a student-made video about Facebook. One of my students reached out to me for a sociological perspective of Facebook. I briefly appear in the video after being described as a "social media expert." That's a generous introduction, but not quite true. Anyway, it was a nice compliment, and I was glad to add my sociological two cents to this terrific video. I think the students did an outstanding job.

Living By The Book from Amanda Galster on Vimeo.