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To Google Friends Or Not To Google, That Is the Question
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Henry Alford writes that in an ideal world, we would all use Google to be better friends by having better recall and to research our new friends and acquaintances to get to know them better. 'It's perfectly natural and almost always appropriate,' says social anthropologist Kate Fox. 'Obviously, one is always going to have to be discreet when talking about what you've found. But our brains haven't changed since the Stone Age, and humans are designed to live in small groups in which everyone knows one another. Googling is an attempt to recreate a primeval, preindustrial pattern of interaction.' But the devil is in the details. If we tell a new friend that we've read her LinkedIn entry or her wedding announcement, it probably won't be perceived as trespassing, as long we bear no ulterior motives. If we happen to reveal that we've also read her long-ago abandoned blog about her cat, we're more likely to be seen as chronically bored than menacing. 'I'm so baffled by this idea that we're not supposed to Google people,' says Dean Olsher. 'Why would there be a line? Like everyone else is allowed to know something but I'm not?' But doesn't taking the google shortcut to a primeval, preindustrial pattern of recognition sometimes rob encounters of their inherent mystery or even get us in trouble? Tina Jordan, an executive in book publishing who has the same name as a former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, says, 'I typically tell any blind dates before I meet them that they probably shouldn't Google my name, otherwise they'll be sorely disappointed when they meet me.'"
You're seriously asking if one should dig up shit about one's friends or not, as if that was a valid question?
Are you insane?
No really: Are. You. Insane?
Friends are people that you *trust. Do yo know what trust is?
Trust is when you don't know, and rely on somebody anyway.
If you can't rely on your friends... then sorry... but they are not friends.
And to be frank: The one thing missing from today's society... is that we aren't friends anymore.
Because some clinically insane psychopaths... care only about money... above all else...
and we are stupid enough to hold that up high, as if it were an ideal.
As I wrote two years ago here, 20th century anonymity was an anomaly.
The return to societal accountability will be a good thing, in my opinion, but the panopticon that prevents business and political trade secrets and that immortalizes peeping-tom photos will be bad things.
"Googling is an attempt to recreate a primeval, preindustrial pattern of interaction."
Yes, I, too, long for the good ol' days of yore when we all used AltaVista...
It's just weird to go making an effort hunting down info on people's past. Wedding announcements and LinkedIn profiles are either pushed to you or stumbled across.
Also, people change. People also say things that they were happy to say publicly at one point in time, that now they might not. Not necessarily because it's inherently embarrassing or whatever, but the context changes with age and environment. Maybe what was written at 17 isn't something you particularly want someone to read now you're 27.
I guess there's also a weird power/balance thing going on when one person has read up on someone's history, and the other hasn't.
In order for someone to find me on Google they have to know such detail for the search terms that it renders the search pointless.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
"I typically tell any blind dates before I meet them that they probably shouldn't Google my name, otherwise they'll be sorely disappointed when they meet me."
I have mastered the Art of Disappointment; I don't need Google for that.
But on a related note, a malicious person spent a fair amount of effort salting Google against me, anonymously. Fortunately, my name is uncommon enough that a renowned, blameless, Indian cook probably bears the brunt of the pain. (My professional name retains untouched.)
And once upon a time you could move to a new town and start over if you screwed up too bad.
By this point silly things you do with your buddies will be online for semi-forever (however long it takes the website and mirrors to fail). Then you get bored "Google Monkeys" (my term) who would have been nice to you but they saw you wearing the dead cat stuffed animal on your head first.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I don't know about you, but this strikes me as odd:
"Henry Alford writes that in an ideal world, we would all use Google to be better friends [....] to get to know them better."
Why would I use a computer to get to know a friend better? Wouldn't it make much more sense to actually *talk* to them, let them (and their friends) tell you stories about their past, including the embarrassing ones their friends and acquaintances will dig up for them (whether they like it or not :)). What's wrong with going to a bar together, go to their birthday party or join them for a weekend break? Isn't that what friends are for?
"Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
But instead we are to google potential friends/mates/bed mates/spouses and believe what we read. Believe that what they posted is more of a truth that what they tell us. That what some stranger wrote about them should effect our feelings. Sure, one can argue that 'if I had only googled I would not be married to a serial rapist', but really was there no clue in conservations or actions. Would accusations on line really have overcome the desire for partnered life that all so often clouds all other good judgement?
And the reason that doing a background check on a friend or whatever is considered in bad taste, and google has just made this easier, not possible, is that it is a violation of trust. When one has a person sitting there, why not just ask? Why do we need to go to our smart phone? Is it that we won't trust the answer? In that case there are problems that a background check won't solve. Linked in and facebook, those are for people in our lives who are strangers or perhaps who have become more strangers than friends. It is for young people who have not developed any significant relationships. It is for parents who want to keep track of their kids, who are moving from a dependency where the parent knows everything to a dependency where secrets are kept. Or for keeping up with people who you have sex with on an occasional basis.
But in now way is google going to let us have better friends. A good friend is not going to be based on total recall. A good salesman who can maximize purchases needs this. Perhaps if one just uses friends for cash and rides this would be useful. But people like genuine interest that falls from genuine interaction, even if that interaction is not always authentic. Maybe search engines will let us have more friends, one for each specific situation. Maybe it will let us have encounters without wasting money on drinks that do not produce desired results. Maybe, in some abstract technical sense, we can be matched up with a friend that is our perfect companion. But what fun would that be.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Nothing beats knowing a person without talking to them. In fact, you don't even have to meet them once you've googled them, which is going to be great during flu season, or any time for that matter. Sure, you might have a totally skewed perspective on your "friends", because they're not the same person online, but that's a small price to pay for not having to talk to people, right?
You shouldn't be surprised when people view it.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Not one of the people I know have a "presence online" - Google may know about them because they use Android, but they have no profiles on plus, facebook, myspace or anywhere else, they do not post updates about themselves constantly and if i google their names i get someone else with that name.
And only small fry will be held "accountable" the big ones will continue to get away, as they always have.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
What the fuck is wrong with people these days? If you want to get to know somebody better, TALK TO THEM. Why is it that the internet has made people forget how to socialize properly?
The origin of information reported is part of the morphology in Hopi, not the lexicon. It is reported by specific morphemes, not specific words. Any language can report such things with specific words, e.g. English "Mary is pregnant, I saw it myself" versus "Mary is pregnant, that's what John said."
Furthermore, morphological encoding is hardly unique to the Hopi, as this typology is found in languages all over the world (including a number of European languages). See Aikhenvald's Evidentiality (Oxford University Press, 2005) for a survey. No need to patronizingly romanticize Native Americans.
Thank God for having a common name. Let's face it, the ONLY reason "friends" or acquaintances Google you is to find the dirt you have revealed for whatever reason to use your past to judge your present. I've seen it happen time and time again.
If my name is plugged into Google the first two or three pages show results for people who are a LOT more interesting than I am (one guy even has a really cool looking band). Last time I looked the top result was a vice president of some large chemical company. Thankfully my real self doesn't show up for a few pages and even then it's nothing I wouldn't want out there.
Tons of forum posts on techie sites, but also a lot of first page links to a guy with my same name who live<s|d> about 20 miles from my home town with a prison record. Luckily, his picture is posted in all the links, but imagine the problems that would cause otherwise.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I have a hard time believing people are actually sitting around googling each other. I have never done a search on anyone I know in real life. Not a boss, not a colleague, not a neighbor, not a friend, not a girlfriend, not a date. Nothing. Why would I? What could I possibly gain from it other than finding them blathering inanity in one place or another that colored my judgement of people who are otherwise nice to be around?
I also don't befriend people I really know on social networks, either. Nor family members. I don't even know if my family members have social networking accounts (including immediate family). I assume maybe they do. But I know them in real life and if I want to talk to them, I just talk to them. I don't need a social network to keep in touch with them (nor do I need to be bombarded with constant streams of everything from every person in my life -- especially family).
And imagine what I might think of someone if I *did* google them and found some random posts somewhere from some vengeful ex or ex-colleage or something? Someone that felt wronged and took it upon themselves to accuse them of things in some random post somewhere? Why do I need that in my head when interacting with someone?
From a non-cyberspace example, even: I got to know someone I'm studying with quite well, and would hear about this friend's fiancé. When I actually met the fiancé, I found it slightly awkward, as I already knew the answers to all the usual introductory social questions (e.g. "What do you do?", "Where are you from?", etc). It was a little bit odd, because there was nothing to start a conversation with.
Similarly, if I googled someone to find out all about them (and was actually finding that person, not some other person with the same name as usually happens with anything except very rare names), I wouldn't have anything to discuss with them.