An increasing number of people are meeting the loves of their lives, or at least of their months, on Facebook.
However, a consequence of this might be that an increasing number of people think they will encounter love's intrepid arrow by socially networking. It seems, indeed, that some might be making advances toward their psychologists. Or even their proctologists.
The U.K.'s Medical Defense Union, an organization whose goal is to "defend the professional reputations of our members when their clinical performance is called into question," is concerned that some of its members resort to politeness when patients request the pleasure of their company via Facebook.
According to the Telegraph, the MDU believes that doctors have become well aware of the need to be careful about material they post on their Facebook pages.
But Dr. Emma Cuzner, the MDU's medical-legal adviser recently wrote in the MDU Journal: "Doctors may be less prepared for patients using sites like Facebook to ask them out on a date."
Some doctors apparently feel one ought, at the very least, to politely reply in the negative. However, Cuzner contended: "Given that this is not a professional route of communication, any correspondence of this sort would clearly stray outside the doctor/patient relationship."
But sometimes even the definition of what is professional is open to interpretation.
What if one of your patients happens upon you at the local corner shop and suggests you have coffee? It would hardly be possible to look him or her in the face, say nothing, turn away, and recommence your search for peanut butter and a large tub of Ben & Jerry's Magic Brownies.
So one can perhaps understand a doctor's natural urge to at least politely decline. What if that patient then badmouths them to other patients? What harm can possibly be done by a simple "no, thank you"?
Moreover, the thing about the Web is that if someone wants to find you, if someone wants to contact you, they can and they will. Yes, you can have better privacy controls on your Facebook account. But information tends to take on a freedom that is hard to anticipate and approaches can come in ways that one least suspects.
The MDU's first priority is protection. Yet one can imagine that some doctors, when approached in any kind of public forum, might feel more inclined to reply in that same forum, however politely, just so that it can be clear and known what their reply really was.
Of course, they could always reply by sending a "Which Kind of Drug Are You?" quiz. Or perhaps the even more popular "What Kind of Evil Creature Are You?"
That's the thing about Facebook. It just brings you so many new, fun ways to communicate.
You know that apocalypse thing we're always being told might be just around the corner? Well, do you feel the chilling breeze? Do you feel the troubled twittering in the trees?
For here is a tale that I know you will discuss with your loved ones, perhaps with other people's loved ones, even with your psychological professional, the minute you hear it.
It appears a man called Dana Hanna is standing at the altar on November 21. He utters those most solemn vows about how he will love and obey or whatever it is that married people claim to do these days.
The officiant pronounces that Dana and his lovely bride, Tracy, are now married. Does Dana weep? Does he kiss his bride?
Ah, no. For Dana's Twitter moniker is TheSoftwareJedi and his first loyalty is to his digital followers. So, much to his wife's surprise, he whips out his cell phone and updates his statuses on both Twitter and Facebook. Right there at the altar. He also hands his wife's cell phone over to her.
Now that he has uploaded the evidence (which we're assuming isn't staged), Dana insists that this was all done for fun.
Indeed, he explained on YouTube: "I have a lot of family scattered around the country and we all use Facebook a lot to keep in touch. So when Tracy and I were engaged, most of my family found out via Facebook because we updated our statuses."
If you're wondering what it is he tweeted from the altar, here it is: "Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday"
However, another tweet sent on Monday night by Hanna, who is chief architect of NextDayPets.com and president of Torian Technologies, might perhaps offer an even greater insight into his complex and socially networked psyche: "Just changed over the laundry for @TracyPage and was thrown off by the fact a bra was in there. Not used to living with a woman again."
Oh, Tracy, are you sure about this? I only ask because I just tried to access the Tracy Page Twitter feed and received the message "this page doesn't exist."
Some, perhaps including Rupert Murdoch, might find this story uplifting.
While there has been much recent bellowing, whining, and general cat-on-heat griping about Google making money from the fine work of others, now I can report that some are finding ways to make money piggybacking on the broad spine of Google's engineering.
Two enterprising entities, different in their form but united in their purpose, have attempted to use Google's Street View as a medium for their own commercial messages.
First, there was car rental company AutoShare, the Canadian equivalent Zipcar in the U.S. You know, the folks who are always reserving spots in your favorite parking lot. Well, AutoShare thought it would be fun to ask its customers to look out for its cars on Street View and offer a limited number of them prizes for their vision.
(Credit:
AutoShare)
The prize wasn't much: 100 strong Canadian dollars. But with some astute ad targeting in locations such as Facebook and Google, their "In-The-Wild" promotion seems to have entertained the world-weary citizens of Toronto.
Indeed, the AutoShare Twitter page shows that people got rather excited about looking for AutoShare's 200 cars on Google's public-spirited cameras.
This enterprising thought process was, perhaps, topped by Editors. Editors is an indie band (don't most bands have to be indie these days?) from the British town of Birmingham, where the people who claim to be my parents say I was born.
To launch their latest album, Editors used a little Flash trickery to hack into Street View, London version, and create their own custom locations where people could enjoy some of their really very fine music and even see some of the band's fans. (Video embedded)
Editors were rather clever in choosing locations that were not normally accessible on Street View.
Recently, I wrote about IKEA's wonderful use of Facebook to launch a store in Malmo, Sweden. And I know some people thought one should point out that this use was not entirely in accordance with Facebook's promotional guidelines.
However, when companies decide that on occasion they'd prefer to use information you thought might be private for commercial gain, when companies ask you to opt out (if they ask you at all) rather than opt in, there are those who might feel that some enterprising uses of, say, Facebook and Google Street View, should be classified as pioneering.
Great commerce, just like great art, sometimes breaks a couple of rules, doesn't it? In fact, Murdoch has done it quite brilliantly on occasion.
The Swedish town of Malmo is a wonderful place.
Some feel it is wonderful because it is the spiritual home of a band that was once cool, the Cardigans.
But now all committed social networkers will think Malmo is wonderful because of its IKEA. You see, the Swedish purveyor of fast-food furniture decided to open a new store in Malmo and didn't really have a lot of money to let people know about it.
So it engaged a rather outre advertising agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a rather special launch campaign.
The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, it uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.
Then it put out word that the first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it.
Facebook being what it is, word got out and needy, enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new sofa, a new bed, or a new vase into which they could stick their plastic flowers or their dead grandparents' ashes.
Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.
Please look at the video I have embedded, as this idea is, as the best always are, simple and inspired. Which, some would say, also perfectly describes the clever, affordable, if sometimes maddening-to-put-together little things made by IKEA.
No, this isn't The Onion.
But just look at that headline and wonder how it could possibly be true.
Well, according to Newsday, Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber was due to conduct an album signing at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, N.Y.
It seems that thousands of teenage girls turned up to mob the wondrous teen hope, a happening perhaps so frightening that Bieber did not turn up.
The Nassau County police became rather concerned that the crowd might break the glass in store windows with its shrieking. (The official word seems to have been "unruly," but teenage girls are never really that.)
So they asked a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records (Bieber's record label), James A. Roppo, to do what record label executives often do when solving a difficult situation: tweet.
However, he is alleged to have not complied with this endearing request and thus found himself arrested, pending charges that might, according to the police, comprise criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor, and obstructing government administration.
Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police told the AP: "We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message. By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."
What is somewhat peculiar is that a tweet was sent from Justin Bieber's account around the time of the arrest, reading: "they are not allowing me to come into the mall. if you don't leave, I and my fans will be arrested, as the police just told us."
Bieber followed this message up with another tweet pleading for the high-pitched wailers to disperse, just three minutes later.
All this occurred Friday. And, thanks to Bieber himself, I have embedded YouTube footage of the melee at the mall.
Bieber posted a link to this footage Saturday and tweeted, "wow. this upsets me. the mall should of had proper security. They wouldnt let me in! Gotta make this right 4 the fans."
Well, yes, it should of. Just look at the worried faces of the parents. Just listen to the screams of the aficionadas. This is the kind of nightmare many will have experienced after a large tub of dulce de leche eaten well past midnight.
I cannot imagine what Roppo might have said to the police in order to incite their wrath. However, looking at this footage, I suspect that something like "Look at these people!!!! They're outta their minds!!! You really think a tweet is going to stop them from screaming?!!!" might have been part of the dialogue.
It is also pleasantly reassuring that the mall staff appears, near the end of the footage, to have resorted to analog crowd dispersal means. Yes, someone found a loudhailer.
However, I can find no record of any arrests from the scene other than Roppo's. And certainly, no one else appears to have been arrested for refusing to tweet.
Therefore, this truly seems to be a world first. One can only look forward to the day when someone's Facebook friends cause them to be arrested for not updating their status.
You know this is serious because they've already talked about it on SportsCenter.
Wednesday saw one of the most painful pieces of cheating that soccer has enjoyed since, oh, since pretty much any other World Cup qualifying game.
However, this occurred in the dying minutes, featured one of the most famous players in the world (yes, he's been on the front of an EA FIFA game box), affected the result of the game, and was so crudely obvious that the world has decided to fight back by socially networking.
In case you were only recently released after being abducted by recalcitrant performance artists, France was playing Ireland for the privilege of going to the World Cup finals in South Africa. Ireland was winning.
Thierry Henry, contemplating moral philosophy, when he played for London's Arsenal.
(Credit: Cc BobbyMond/Flickr)A ball was hopefully pumped into the Irish penalty area. The French captain, Thierry Henry, reached out his left hand to control the ball, enjoyed the feeling so much he actually handled it twice, then crossed the ball for an embarrassed teammate, Willam Gallas, to score and eliminate the plucky Irish. (It is compulsory to use the term "plucky" when referring to the Irish soccer team.)
Henry, perhaps sensing his precious image evaporating, admitted Friday that the game should be replayed.
Even though the sport's governing body, FIFA, has declared no replay will happen, it now has to deal with perhaps the fastest-growing Facebook group on earth.
Petition to have IRELAND VS FRANCE REPLAYED!!!!! already has secured more than 250,000 members since its inception, as well as an increasing amount of media coverage.
What is clear from the group is that people from all over the world are incensed that FIFA has haughtily dismissed the power of the people, the socially networking people. The group has organized a protest in Dublin, 2 p.m. local time Saturday.
If I were one of the fine-dining, bouncy-bellied officials at FIFA, I would pay a little more attention to this Facebook group. The last time someone so blatantly ignored the will of the socially-networking people--who, in the Facebook group's case, include many from France itself--it was a lady who guffawed: "Let them eat cake."
Yes, she was Queen of France and it did not end well for her. I feel sure Marie Antoinette would have wished for a little replay in her own life. And I feel equally sure that, were she alive today, she would be joining the Facebook group "Petition to have IRELAND VS FRANCE REPLAYED!!!!!" in demanding a rerun of this most important game.
Facebook seems to have contributed to countless broken love affairs, divorces, and insane levels of jealousy. People pry into your friend lists and updates until they sometimes reach conclusions far beyond reality. How lovely, then, that a mere status update appears to have saved a Harlem man from jail.
According to The New York Times, Rodney Bradford decided to update his status with a call from the soul. "Where's my pancakes?" is the Times' translation of a status update it says was written in "indecipherable street slang." The fact that Bradford did this at 11:49 a.m. on October 17, using his father's computer, meant that he would not have to suffer pancakes of a more distasteful nature in the local penitentiary.
(Credit:
CC Slushpup/Flickr)
Bradford, you see, was arrested the next day for robbery. However, after he was booked, his lawyer was intelligent enough to update the district attorney with news of Bradford's Facebooking.
A subpoena was swiftly flung the way of the Zuckerbergville crew so that they might reveal whether the timing and location of the update were correct. They were, meaning Bradford could update his criminal status to "cleared."
There are some, however, who are not entirely convinced the charges should have been dropped. Joseph Pollini, a teacher at the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice told the Times: "With a username and password, anyone can input data in a Facebook page."
He also offered a dire warning of the infinite dastardliness of people Bradford's age: "Some of the brightest people on the Internet are teenagers. They know the Internet better than a lot of people. Why? Because they use it all the time."
Oh, why is it so hard to give young people the benefit of the doubt--especially on Facebook?
I'm sorry to be mentioning sex again. But I have some survey findings that might just interrupt your own cogitations about the meaning and function of life.
The fine and upstanding folks at Retrevo.com, which, I believe, is a site where you can buy various sorts of electronica with which to record your most public and private moments, decided to survey today's under-35s.
And what appalling people they seem to be.
Indeed, Retrevo's findings are so disturbing that I wonder whether the roboticists are right to suggest that sex should be a matter of adjusting one's own chemistry rather than attempting to consort with another human. To wit, in the words of blogger Michael Anissimov, one of the "leading thinkers in the radical tech community" who were invited to pontificate in the lustrous pages of H Plus magazine: "The connection between certain activities and the sensation of pleasure lies entirely in our cognitive architecture, which we will eventually manipulate at will."
I am haunted by the drastic prognostications by the salivators over The Singularity about the future of sex. Indeed, some words of Anissimov are rattling around my head like those of a particularly angry former lover. Speaking of this beautiful future, he said: "I could make any experience in the world highly pleasurable or highly displeasurable. I could make sex suck and staring at paint drying the greatest thing ever."
But where would we be without the current version of sex? No governors of South Carolina dancing the Argentine tango. No jokes about presidents and cigars. And not anyone telling us that, indeed, we are the best.
What a dull thing the future might turn out to be.
Which brings us back to the current state of concupiscence and Retrevo's discovery that 36 percent of people leap on to Twitter or Facebook immediately after conjugal behavior.
Not just once or twice, but "often." What can they possibly be tweeting? What words and phrases can their Facebook updates possibly enjoy? "Jeffrey H. has just got some"? "Melissa J. is in flagrante"?
Or perhaps something as very basic as "Tracy T. is single"?
My gob is quite simply smacked at the idea that people must trumpet their intimate behavior within seconds of its climax. I do, however, have more interesting information.
Apparently, men are twice as likely to broadcast to their social network immediately post-flagrante than are women. This despite women allegedly being the majority on most social networks.
And if you are one of those who believes that iPhone users are deeply narcissistic nabobs, then please consider this most disturbing piece of news: iPhone users are three times more likely to tweet or Facebook post-coitally than are BlackBerry users.
I find myself so completely shaken by this data that I feel an inordinate need to lie down for a period of some months.
Has this social-networking nonsense so completely gripped our very beings that we are nothing other than newscasters of our own ridiculous subjectivity?
My girlfriend says she'll let me know what she thinks about this, but first she's got a few tweets to send.
When I lived and worked in Warsaw, Poland, just before the turn of the century, I had a client who was about to make a TV spot. The client insisted on a Polish director. We offered the name Marek Dawid.
"Who's his DP (director of photography)?" the client asked.
"Pawel Edelman," was the answer.
"Oh, I'm not having two Jews on my shoot," came the reply, which was both stunningly anti-Semitic and frighteningly stupid, as Edelman went on to be DP on such movies as "The Pianist."
I tell this story only because Poland, despite its pride in being the only European country occupied by Nazis that didn't have a collaborator government, is not devoid of anti-Semitic attitudes.
This is why many will welcome the creation of an Auschwitz Facebook site.
According to the BBC, the authorities at Auschwitz, as bleak and frightening a place as you can ever visit, view the site as an experiment but hope that it will be a lasting reminder to younger generations of the concentration camp's painful significance in history.
Pawel Sawicki, a museum official at Auschwitz, told the BBC, "If our mission is to educate the younger generation to be responsible in the contemporary world, what better tool can we use to reach them than the tools they use themselves?"
These tools are already being used, after all, by those who seek to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, which has led to much controversy as to whether they contravene Facebook's terms of service.
The new Auschwitz Facebook site allows for discussion and, as yet, nothing has been posted by deniers.
However, it will be interesting to see whether, over time, it will serve as a lasting reminder when there is no one still alive who personally experienced Auschwitz's horrors.
Should you be one of those who believe that men are neanderthal, socially awkward hairy animals while women are socially aware, smoothly sensitive beings, then I have some statistics that might increase your estimation of your own superior judgment.
According to research by Brian Solis, sourcing his data from Google's Ad Planner, the majority of functioning beings on almost all social networking sites are women.
Published on Information Is Beautiful, the numbers might create an encouraging belief that if social networking is the future, then the future is female.
Solis's figures suggest that there is only one major social-networking site that is predominantly male: Digg. I know you'll recoil uncontrollably when I tell you that Digg appears to be 64 percent male.
(Credit:
Information Is Beautiful)
On the other hand, LinkedIn and YouTube seem to enjoy an equality of fraternity and sorority. While Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr and MySpace, to name but a few, are all, like the population of Brazil, queendoms.
Perhaps the most extraordinary numbers come from MySpace. Somehow, the rather messy nature of the site, the tradition of an excess of spam and porn, might suggest that this was a male-oriented (slightly sleazy males, some might imagine) haven.
These numbers, however, suggest that MySpace is 64 percent female. Which makes one ruminate as to why the home page currently has so much blue and so little fuchsia.
It will be tempting, indeed, for many to put these figures down to traditional psychological differences between the sexes: women like people and men like, well, peeing in public.
However, one might also conclude that women simply resort to more virtual contact because their real world physical everyday life leaves them rather more dissatisfied than it does men.
Lately there seems to have been much evidence that women are increasingly miserable.
Celebrated and, one might have imagined, happy women such as Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (The Sad Shocking Truth of How Women Are Feeling) and Maureen Dowd of The New York Times (Blue is the New Black) have lamented the lot of Lot's Wife, Mother, Sister and Daughter.
Might misery be driving women to MySpace?
