How Facebook Changed Us, and How We Might Change Again

(image) If you weren’t under a rock yesterday, you know Facebook turned ten years old this week (that’s a link to a Zuckerberg interview on the Today Show, so yep, hard to miss). My favorite post on the matter (besides Sara’s musings here and here – she was at Harvard with Zuck when the service launched) is from former Facebook employee Blake Ross, who penned a beauty about the “Rules” that have fallen over the past ten years. Re/code covers it  here, and emphasizes how much has changed in ten years – what was once sacred is now mundane. To wit:

– No, you can’t let moms join Facebook because Facebook is for students.

– No, you can’t put ads in newsfeed because newsfeed is sacred.

– No, you can’t allow people to follow strangers because Facebook is for real-world friends.

– No, you can’t launch a standalone app because integration is our wheelhouse.

– No, you can’t encourage public sharing because Facebook is for private sharing.

– No, you can’t encourage private sharing because Facebook is moving toward public sharing.

– No, you can’t encourage public sharing because Facebook is moving toward ultra-private sharing between small groups.

And this one’s a snapchat with about 3 seconds left, so hurry up and bludgeon someone with it:

– No, you can’t allow anonymity because Facebook is built on real identity.

None of these pillars came down quietly. They crashed with fury, scattering huddles of shellshocked employees across watering holes like dotted brush fires after a meteor strike.

Re/code ends its post with “makes you wonder what might change in the next 10 years.” Well yes, it certainly does.

A close read of Ross’ post leaves me wondering about “informational personhood.” He considers all the change at Facebook, and his role in it as an sometimes frustrated employee, concluding that what he got from the experience was perspective:

It took me probably half a dozen meteoric nothings before I learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb. A congenital pessimist, I gradually began to see the other side of risk. Now, when the interns wanted to mix blue and yellow, I could squint and see green; but I thought the sun might still rise if everything went black. I felt calmer at work. I began to mentor the newer hires who were still afraid of meteors. Today I watch Facebook from a distance with 1.2 billion other survivors, and my old fears charm like the monster under the bed: I couldn’t checkmate this thing in a single move even if I wanted to. But even now, I know someone over there is frantically getting the band back together.

Fortunately, this blossoming resilience followed me home from work:

My very chemistry has changed. In relationships, hobbies, and life, I find myself fidgeting in the safe smallness of the status quo. I want more from you now, and I want more from myself, and I’m less afraid of the risks it’ll take to get there because I have breathed through chaos before and I believe now—finally—that we’ll all still be here when the band stops playing.

This is, of course, just a staple of adulthood. It’s what we were missing that night when meteors left us crater-faced for senior prom and we all thought our lives were over. It’s called perspective, and it’s the best thing I got from growing up Facebook.

Hmmm. So many things to ponder here. The constant renegotiation of the rules at Facebook changed his “very chemistry.” A fascinating observation – heated debate about the rules of our social road made Ross a different person. Did this happen to us all? Is it happening now? For example, are we, as a culture, “getting used to” having the policies around our informational identities – our “infopersons” – routinely renegotiated by a corporate entity?

I think so far the answer is yes. I’m not claiming that’s wrong, per se, but rather, it is interesting and noteworthy. This perspective that Ross speaks of – this “growing up” – it bears more conversation, more exploration. What are the “Rules” right now, and will they change in ten years, or less? (And these “Rules” need not be only internal to Facebook – I mean “Rules” from the point of view of ourselves as informational people.)

Some that come to mind for me include:

– I don’t spend that much of my time thinking about the information I am becoming, but when I do, it makes me uneasy.

– I can always change the information that is known about me, if it’s wrong, but it’s a huge PITA.

– I can always access the information that is known about me, if I really want to do the work (but the truth is, I usually don’t).

– I know the information about me is valuable, but I don’t expect to derive any monetary value from it.

– It’s OK for the government to have access to all this information, because we trust the government. (Like it or not, this is in fact true by rule of law in the US).

– It’s OK for marketers to have information about me, because it allows for free Internet services and content. (Ditto)

– I understand that most of the information that makes up my own identity is controlled by large corporations, because in the end, I trust they have my best interests at heart (and if not, I can always leave).

What rules do you think much of our society currently operates under? And are they up for renegotiation, or are we starting to set them in stone?