“I totally met this cute guy last night at this party…”
“Whats his name, I’ll look him up on Facebook?”
Above is a typical exchange between two friends. “Facebook
stalking”, or looking someone up on a social networking site to get a feel of
who they are, is a common thing for kids my age. Looking at a person’s social
networking sites (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest) is a way to get
to know someone’s personality, without actually getting to know someone’s
personality. We are constantly checking the aforementioned sites: in class, at
the gym, while we’re grocery shopping, and by doing so we are becoming
increasingly interconnected with hundreds of our “friends” and “followers”. Often times, looking at someone’s Facebook or
Instagram feeds can lend more insight about their life, than meeting them can.
Is this type of instant access making us more judge-y and less welcoming? There
are times where I have been guilty of “Facebook stalking” and been quick to
make judgments about someone based on the pictures they post of themselves and
what they write on peoples walls. Although it seems arbitrary, what you put on
the internet speaks for itself, and can make impressions on people, even if
they don’t know you. Posting something on the internet is no longer something
that can be carefree; everything you post has a consequence and has the
potential to be seen by thousands of people. Anytime an unseemly picture of me
finds its way to my Facebook, I have to think to myself what my Aunts, Uncles,
Parents, and even my Grandmother, would think of it. Our lives are so public,
that even things we don’t want to be seen become seen. Nothing is private
anymore, and with the emergence of smartphones, anything you say or do can be
recorded at any time. In a world where judging a person by their “tweets” and “instagrams”
is the norm, and “Facebook stalking” is socially acceptable, Are we being too
quick to judge?
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