| Recently, I found somebody's profile on Facebook, and was immediately presented with maybe just a little bit more information than I really needed or wanted to know about that person. I'm not going to go into too much detail about which it is, but suffice it to say I see them on a fairly regular basis while they are at work.
The experience of looking at somebody's Facebook profile – especially somebody who is really on the periphery of your experience, is kind of an odd sensation. It's a very focused look at somebody's life that you don't necessarily get in a professional, academic, or casual setting, and it happens very quickly. Not, of course, that I don't normally get to know people well, just that it's usually slower.
The experience of finding out about somebody's life from other media, like forums and blogs, is different too, because that media tends to either be unfocused, or change the focus from the home and personal life toward something unrelated, such as technology or music. Through the details or interpretations of technology or music, you can get to know somebody slowly, over the course of a few years. (Or years' worth of blog posts, at least.)
So, that happened. |