I am not afraid of, but definitely a little bit uncomfortable with, writing on my friends' walls on facebook. I don't really know where this one came from. It's a pretty stupid thing to be uncomfortable doing. Like many people, I participate in wishing people Happy Birthday on their walls, but I never really post on people's walls for other reasons. I was sort of surprised about a year ago to realize that people really seem to have whole conversations on Facebook walls, and the notion that I was expected to reply to a wall post. It just seems sort of awkward to have a conversation in public. It also seems awkward to post on the facebook wall of someone I talk to often on Instant Messenger or text message, but I suppose I shouldn't be so weird-ed out by it.
In any case, this week I decided to post messages on the walls of five friends and see how it went. I mostly posted "hey, how are you" messages. I chose four friends that I have not spoken to in months, and one who I speak to often. Almost everyone responded to my messages, and I responded back. However, I sort of censored my responses though, lest anyone from my company see my responses and see me writing negative things about my job on someone's wall. I'm not sure whether my coworkers would care, but my sense is that it would be bad form to write such thoughts in a public forum, even though in a private email or IM with the same friends I would say as much.
I'm not really sure what I learned this week. Maybe that facebook wall conversations aren't so scary after all? Still, I think one should be careful what ends up in public on facebook, and maybe that is why I prefer instant messenger communications to social networking ones.
Up next: I will post 5 status updates and 5 @ messages on twitter.
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