douglasmcgregor.co.uk

Following up on this article about the most annoying Facebook habits, I decided to put my views forward on this in the safe environment of my own website.

I think that if we go deeply into the psychology of online behaviour, we'll only end up becoming paranoid, and there's enough of that in the world already.  While some of them may be true in a funny way, it can scare some sensitive people like myself, since it could easily reflect on the kind of person you are in real life. 

I've often wondered if some people think they know the kind of person you are, say, if you know them from school, and think it's weird if you're not the sort of person they expect you to be, and that's the sort of thing I think is weird.  Obviously I've been through a lot since school, and I've changed, I've become more confident and I know how to stick up for myself (most of the time).  I think a lot of comes down to personality clashes – people might just not be suited to each other. 

The point about Facebook statuses is that people could feel intimidated if they're classed into a certain category, like in the article linked to above.  I'm a really honest person, and sometimes can't help posting how I feel, like last night, when I said I could do with a shoulder to cry on.  People who know me will know I'm very stressed out, while looking for work, and people who I don't see that often, well, don't.  It's logical really. 

Another issue, and something I think is a very good point, is annoying people who have hundreds of Facebook applications and annoy everyone with quiz updates.  I think this is fine for one or two, but not to do it every hour.  The applications I mainly have on display are:

• What I'm Listening To
• Star Trek Quotes
• weRead (Books iRead)
• Which Star Trek Voyager Character Are You
• Twitter
• Notes

The Star Trek applications are obvious, since I'm a serious Trekkie, and often think of Star Trek was reality, that I'd be an Ensign or Liutenant on a Starship by now.  Or maybe a engineer in the Temporal Mechanics Department.  Oh, before I leave the subject, it says my Star Trek Voyager character is Captain Kathryn Janeway, and she is my favourite character! I think the What I'm Listening To is obvious as well, since I studied classical music, and people can see I'm listening to respectable stuff.  My point is that everything is personal, like this website. 

If you define various status updates to annoying people, then it kind of spoils things.  Anyway, I just think we should stop analyzing things too much and enjoy what we have in life.  It's fine to analyze things like music, and politics, but that's about all I would do outside of work. 

Just my thoughts on the matter.