Facebook limited profile feature is handy when want to hide embarrassing
personal information from specific group, but can you take it too far?
A friend of mine, (ok, let’s just call it M) has five
limited profiles on Facebook. Look…it’s Five! If you’re unfamiliar with the
concept of Facebook’s limited profiles, you either live your life an open book
(how very Gen-Y of you) or have successfully resisted the temptation of the ubiquitous
social network – for now…
To put it plainly, limited profiles on Facebook allow you to
control what you want to share with your network of “friends. For example, many
of us have no desire to reveal photos of our drunken Friday nights to our
clients or bosses, so we set up a limited profile that only gives them access
to photo album that show us at work events or pure family holidays.
It follows the theory of the bear pooping in the woods – if they
don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.
But when I found out about M’s limited profiles, my jaw unhinged,
because it revealed a whole new level off meticulousness when it comes to
curating one’s online images. Like the proverbial onion, she has distinctly differentiated
the many layers of herself, which she presents to various groups of people in
her life: colleagues, family, friends and acquaintances. I think she even has
one for ex-boyfriends… (Gosh…think about it)
“How do you choose what to share with one group as opposed
to another?” I asked her. She quickly rattled off a string complicated
criteria, but essentially it’s a reflection of how she separates her social
layer in real life. For example, she doesn’t like her colleague prying into her
private affairs, so she doesn’t give them access to photo albums that feature
past or present boyfriends.
I on the other hand, don’t have any limited profiles. My
policy is simple – if I want to share something on Facebook, I share it with
everyone. Personally, it makes life a whole lot easier. Then again, I am hardly
the most active user of Facebook, because its purpose for me has dramatically
changed. When once it contained to close friend, over the years of my “friends”
list has grown to include primary schoolmates that we don’t’ speak much and
work acquaintances who don’t really need to know that my day off comprise of
sitting in front my computer all day or
hitting the outdoor for some
fresh air. Instead, I share those things on private chats or on WhatsApp with
my other core friend.
But I have to admit that I have a certain respect for M’s
fastidiousness, because to curate your online image so carefully takes a heck
of a lot of dedication. It’s not dishonest or calculating, just the barefaced
reality that we all have different facets that we reveal selectively. It’s
hardly surprising that the practice has extended to our online lives where we
spend time interacting with many of our loved one and not-quite-so-loved ones.
For the latter, a limited profile is a lot less brutal than getting “unfriended”,
but that’s another story.
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