Facebook has allowed our generation to stay in touch with friends in many ways, including wall posts, photos, messages, event invitations and status updates, but it has also created a questionable extracurricular activity: “creeping.”
For the record, I prefer to use “creeping” instead of stalking because stalking someone sounds much creepier than “creeping” someone. Miss Maz Hardy writes the blog “A guide to Facebook Etiquette” on www.blogspot.com. She said using “the news and minifeed revelations is perfectly acceptable and expected operandi of surveillance.” By her definition, everything else is “creeping.”
I’ll admit I’ve “creeped” someone before. Let’s face it, Facebook has made it easy and tempting. Because I’ve “creeped,” I’ve come up with my own definition. Any time you view the profile of a person with whom you are not Facebook “friends,” you’ve just “creeped.” When you visit a friend’s page without a good reason, i.e. something showed up in the minifeed, it’s his or her birthday, or you are close to them but haven’t seen or heard from them in a while, you’ve just “creeped.” Anything else is acceptable use of Facebook.
So what’s the big deal? Most people wouldn’t physically go out and follow someone around to find out everything about his or her life, so why would do people feel comfortable “creeping” others on Facebook?
Gavin Driskill, a student at Vanderbilt, summed up the reason in an interview with USA Today. He said, “You’re just sitting there, and there’s no direct interaction. So in one sense you feel safe because you can get this information without sharing anything about you.
“Though they could be Facebook-stalking you.”
That’s a scary thought. I can picture it now: a student walking across campus. A stranger runs up and says “Hey, you’re so-and-so. I saw you on Facebook. Aren’t you double majoring in elementary education and psychology with a minor in Spanish? Did you have fun at the Tumbleweed on Thursday night?” Creepy.
Facebook could basically kill the first date. You meet the “perfect” girl or guy in class and add him or her on Facebook. You both “creep” each other, and by the time you get to dinner on Friday night, you already know everything about each other. You don’t feel comfortable enough with him or her to discuss more serious topics, or worse, you’re bored because you’re talking about all the things you already know in order to keep conversation flowing. Good luck making it to the second date.
Luckily, there are ways to prevent “creeping.” Set your profile to private. If you feel like someone knows too much, only allow him or her to see your limited profile. Use caution when uploading pictures and writing wall posts. Facebook is a communication tool, but we all know “creepers” exist. I doubt you want to share anything you wouldn’t share in face to face conversation. If you get caught “creeping,” your best option is to make a joke about it.
The easiest way to deal with “creeping” is to avoid it, and follow the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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Bullcrap to the stalking/creeping thing. You can’t creep someone by looking at their profile page when you’re not friends because you can’t view profiles of non-friends, you have to add them first. Once you add them, uh, what goes into their news feed is public, what’s in their mini feed is public unless they’ve set it to private, in which case, the only way you could creep/stalk them is to hack into their account. Otherwise, once you are friends, you can view their profile and their feeds, that’s what they are for, so you’re not creeping/stalking anybody. Creeping and stalking only comes into play when you follow someone from site to site, forum to forum all over the net. That can’t even be done to you on Facebook if you don’t want somebody friending or even finding you. You can block people you do not like over there. People are WAY too paranoid about the Facebook feeds and Facebook in general and need to get a grip and stop judging others as creepers/stalkers for *gasp OMG* actually looking at their profile or looking them up as a potential friend on Facebook!
My two cents…
Don’t want it looked at? Don’t post it.
It’s honestly that simple.
I love how we make a game out of everything… How there are these “creeping rules” and how creeping is such a terrible thing. You’re seriously over-analyzing this whole thing. So, as Jessica above me said, if you don’t want it looked at, then don’t post it. Likewise, if the other person makes the info available to you, then why not look at it?
Also, when it comes to dating, I would assume that Facebook could actually be very helpful, as opposed to your idea of it being hurtful, in that you can find basic information about someone on the net and then expound upon it in real life. For instance, maybe Facebook says that this particular person is interested in photography. When talking face to face, you can now say “So, you like photography?” From there you can get a story of why they like it, how they got into it, what all they’ve done… etc. I don’t see that as hurtful at all.
Lastly, another important thing to note is that back when Facebook started allowing applications, they fought to the death to make sure that no one made an application allowing users to track who looks at their profiles. This is an obvious indication that Facebook wants to respect the privacy of these “creepers” that you are talking about so that, like I said, if the information is available and can be looked at, it should be if that is the decision of the viewer of said material. Someone, maybe you, probably made up those so called “rules” while they were sitting on the toilet with nothing better to do than decide what should and shouldn’t happen on Facebook according to THEM.
Bottom line, if it’s there, it can and will be looked at. That’s how the net works and that’s how it always has. Get used to it.
To Capri: It IS possible to view non friends if there account is public. I signed up under a bogus name simply to test this theory. Yes it is true when you first sign in and start looking for people their accounts are indeed non viewable. However, if you join the same network, if their account isn’t set to private, their account becomes accessible.
Also, for those who have set their profiles to private, if you have ‘view friends’ visible, bare in mind that a number of your friends may have not set their privacy as tight as you and may be public. If you write on that persons wall or they post a photo of you, others may see it. Blocking does not help. Say you know a person named John Doe (in real life) for example and you think he is creeping you. Blocking John Doe will not stop him if he signs up as Bob Smith, or whatever. Everyone should sign up under a false name at least once, not to do harm, just to experiment and see just how much info a stranger can get. Deactivate the account when finished.
Let’s be careful out there…