Dear Dr Status Update...

A few days ago the BBC ran a news story about Facebook's latest technical glitch. "Millions exposed" as "personal details" were made available on the site, officials apologise, damage limitation, will never happen again, all that jazz. In the grand scheme of things the problem was a minor one, but there's something inescapably ironic (and really quite revealing) about the BBC's choice of words. Exposure of details. Personal exposure. Isn't that exactly what Facebook is? Isn't every newsfeed or timeline a systematic exposure of personal details? You say where you're going, what you're doing and who you're with. More than that, you say what you feel and what you think. By its very nature, even as a basic mode of communication, Facebook necessitates the exposure of personal details.

Before this gets a bit too dramatic/despairing/downright depressing, I should make a confession. A disclaimer, if you will. I have absolutely no control over my Facebook habits, I'm aware that I don't particularly like them but they exist nonetheless. However, Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram are asking  more and more of their users. The world is a increasingly public one and we are inevitably becoming a more public people. Much has been written on the way social media influences our interactions with others, but what does the personal exposure mean for the ways in which we view ourselves?

Social media has moved far beyond communicative purposes. Blogs such as Tumblr, Myspace and somewhat embarrassingly, this Blogspot, offer a chance to create a whole identity and a space where that identity can be projected and its voice can be heard. Status updates have become the modern equivalent of diary entries - a digital record of our activities and opinions, not unlike a written journal. These snippets and fragments of life can seem fairly innocuous; nothing much can be read into "On my way to Nandos", or "BEST NIGHT EVER LAST NIGHT!". However, it's not exactly what is said, but the fact that anything is said at all. To be hyper-cynical/go all Stewart Lee about it, recording your every move in a public forum is akin to creating a kind of contained celebrity - in the mini-world of your Facebook friends, your actions and thoughts are valuable and worthy of record. Even if you have just nipped down the pub with your mates. #nothingspecial.

To avoid this sounding like an ill-advised bout of self-righteousness, I have an example that both encapsulates the idea of a life lived on Facebook, and reveals how easily one can be sucked into it. In a case of mistaken identity, I once added a complete stranger as a 'friend'. She accepted (which itself was weird) and I never got round to deleting her (probably weirder). Three years later and she's become a bizarre stock figure in my cyber-life. I've witnessed the birth of her two children, her relationship woes, her day to day activities and her plans for the future, all of it posted online like a personal scrapbook. It is sheer voyeurism and nosiness; the modern day version of peeping over your neighbours fence, but with far more juicy results. The uncomfortable truth is that a good proportion of us probably have someone like the poor woman who accepted my friend request, or maybe we actually are that person.

An extension of Diary-Facebook is Therapist-Facebook. We're not just asked where we are and what we're doing, but how do we feel and why? If you're having trouble expressing it to Dr Status Update, there are even handy little Myspace relics which depict a variety of emotions.

This attempt to concretise the whole range of human emotion is pretty grim, and symptomatic of the whole problem with Facebook therapy and Facebook diary entries - it forces a complete removal of complexity, subtlety and nuance. More than that, it manufactures introspection whilst paradoxically removing any sort of personal insight, as this most personal process is laid bare for the world to see. And, of course, for them to comment on.

Whatever your opinion on social media, there is surely an undeniable loneliness, even poignancy in the system. It's not a perfect diagnosis, but there are definitely hints of it in even the most normative status updates. Wishing the world "Goodnight.xxx", or letting people know exactly where you are ("Home sweet home!") is like an attempted affirmation of one's place within a network of human connection. It says, "I am here and so are you". There seems to be some value in that, even if it's just a basic indication of the human desire to interact, to take interest, even to be nosy. However, the online attempt to reveal all generally reveals that there isn't in fact that much to reveal in the first place  - such is the hermeneutic circle-jerk produced by any attempt to analyse  Facebook. Ah, so it is.

Articles which influenced this attempt at one- 

"From memory to sexuality, the digital age is changing us completely."

"Internet anonymity is the height of chic."