Fragmented

I don’t use Facebook much. I have an account so that I can write software that integrates with it; as a result, once in a blue moon I find myself reading friends’ posts, or writing a quick one myself.

My Facebook profile consists mostly of photos I’ve been tagged in by my other, more Facephilic, friends. It is fragmented and vague, like a funhouse mirror seen through a fog. My Facebook profile doesn’t look like my own life to me.

And yet, there’s tacit assumption that Facebook is where our digital lives are. I was sharply reminded of this when Amy and I joined a support group for new parents here in Seattle. Facebook is how everyone communicates and, alarmingly, how everyone forms an impression of others. What impression might our new parenting friends have of Amy and me?

This is yet another reason why I increasingly want to own my online presence.