Facebook Usage

I started thinking about how i use Facebook in different settings. For instance at home – when I am alone at least- I can do pretty much everything on Facebook, write comments on other peoples photos or status updates, have a personnel conversation either on the chat or in the private message feature. I can take, edit and upload photos of myself or of things I find interesting or funny or weird. And I can look at other people’s Facebook pages, even people I am not friends with on Facebook or don’t know at all.

At home I feel free to do everything I want on Facebook, because no one is watching me and my interactions.

I take the train often because I just moved to Aarhus from Copenhagen, so many of my friends live there and my family lives on Zealand as well. When I take the train I always bring my computer so I have something to do, while sitting in the train for three hours. I often use Facebook here as well, but I have discovered that my use is very different and limited in comparison to my use at home. I would probably never upload pictures while sitting in the train, or at least not at myself. I would rarely look at other people’s Facebook pages or write private messages in this setting. I think this is because I feel like I am under surveillance while sitting in the train. I am in a public place, and strangers have the possibility to watch what I am doing, by looking at my screen. I feel uncomfortable by this, because i guess I feel like my Facebook use, or parts of it, is private. But way do I care if other people see what I am doing? Perhaps I think that they will think a certain (negative) way about me, if they watch my interaction. But why do I care if strangers, (who I will probably never see again) think negatively about me? Why is it so important to be to be perceived a certain way by others and that defines this certain way? And how does my use at Facebook reflect who I am and how I want to be perceived by others? I sometimes feel like there is a right way to use Facebook, and when I am not using Facebook the right way, I don’t want others to catch me doing this wrong use. But what is the right use of Facebook, how I it defined? Is it only me who feels like this or is there a common believe of a right way to use Facebook?

If I should try to define my view on a right way to use Facebook I guess I believe that it involves things like, being active, commenting and liking your friends posts, regularly post updates and photos yourselves, change your profile image often and definitely not stalk strangers or watch pages of people you don’t know.

That was just some thourghts on my Facebook use.

Over and out

- Thea