(AP)
A friend and I had a good laugh last night over a recent series of stories out there that ponder what not being on
Facebook could be saying to the world.
She talked about an eternally flaky friend who happened to not be on The Social Network.
I thought about a guy of the past who
did have an account but was funny about how much people could see of it.
Definitely a red flag.
But was the friend of my friend’s FB resistance an indication unto itself of something more?
Perhaps. On the other hand, maybe not.
But let some people – like Slate’s
Farhad Manjoo and Emily Yoffe – tell it, if you’re not on Facebook, you’re suspicious. Adding two cents to that claim,
Forbes.com tells us that even employers don’t know how to read job seekers who don’t have a FB profile. And in summing up a German news article about how neither accused Aurora shooter James Holmes nor Norwegian mass murder Anders Behring Breivik have Facebook accounts, tech site
Slashdot writes “not having a Facebook account could be the first sign that you are a mass murderer.”
While that bit about those guys’ commonality is um…scary!!! and Slashdot's conclusion absurdly extreme, is being a social media resister, or at least a nonFacebooker indeed a red flag? Is it suspicious?
When I first read the
Daily Mail article (found via none other than a
FB post), I was so certain someone from Facebook itself had played a role in this latest storyline, as part of some effort that would scare a few nonparticipants into signing up and signing onto this social network.
After all, writes Forbes’ Kashmir Hill: “Continuing to navigate life without having this digital form of identification may be like trying to get into a bar without a driver’s license.”
Hm, I hear what she’s saying—being connected is paramount, but is being not-
so-connected a barrier to experiencing the real world, landing real opportunities and having a
real good time?
