The New Ethical Dilemmas of Facebook
My birthday was a little over a month ago. This was the first birthday in my life for which I have ever received so many birthday wishes, and it's all because of Facebook.
Facebook is blocked at work (but not LJ anymore, woo-hoo!), so I don't login compulsively, but it seems just about everyone I'd ever friended does, and most of them dutifully sent me birthday wishes on seeing the reminder of my birthday on their homepage.
At first, the birthday wishes were very gratifying, especially the ones from people I knew well. But as the day wore on, they just kept pouring in, and often from people I hadn't spoken to in years, at which point it became slightly embarrassing. Many people simply wrote "Happy birthday" which, as I was saying to some friends the other day, might just as well have been an automated message. "Now, Facebook will wish all your friends a happy birthday for you whenever their birthday comes up!"
But I don't want to sound as if I'm offended: I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that, even if they hardly ever speak to me and just sent me a message of "Happy birthday", they did so with good intentions.
So that led me to the dilemma: whether, and how, to thank all these people. Thirty messages saying "Thank you!" are every bit as automatable as thirty messages saying "Happy birthday!". But then, would a single blanket message of "Thank you all for wishing me a happy birthday" be appropriate? That, in its own way, seems just as impersonal.
In the end, I was so paralyzed by the lack of etiquette precedent that I did nothing. -- Er, or maybe I was just lazy.
And, human nature being what it is, I know that, as much as I may complain about this dilemma, if I get fewer birthday wishes through Facebook next year, I'll be thinking, "What, so people don't love me anymore...?"
Facebook is blocked at work (but not LJ anymore, woo-hoo!), so I don't login compulsively, but it seems just about everyone I'd ever friended does, and most of them dutifully sent me birthday wishes on seeing the reminder of my birthday on their homepage.
At first, the birthday wishes were very gratifying, especially the ones from people I knew well. But as the day wore on, they just kept pouring in, and often from people I hadn't spoken to in years, at which point it became slightly embarrassing. Many people simply wrote "Happy birthday" which, as I was saying to some friends the other day, might just as well have been an automated message. "Now, Facebook will wish all your friends a happy birthday for you whenever their birthday comes up!"
But I don't want to sound as if I'm offended: I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that, even if they hardly ever speak to me and just sent me a message of "Happy birthday", they did so with good intentions.
So that led me to the dilemma: whether, and how, to thank all these people. Thirty messages saying "Thank you!" are every bit as automatable as thirty messages saying "Happy birthday!". But then, would a single blanket message of "Thank you all for wishing me a happy birthday" be appropriate? That, in its own way, seems just as impersonal.
In the end, I was so paralyzed by the lack of etiquette precedent that I did nothing. -- Er, or maybe I was just lazy.
And, human nature being what it is, I know that, as much as I may complain about this dilemma, if I get fewer birthday wishes through Facebook next year, I'll be thinking, "What, so people don't love me anymore...?"