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.'"

Comments

So let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[AliasMarlowe]

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?

Perhaps they meant "friends" (of the Facebook variety) rather than friends (real ones that you meet in real life).

If anyone I care about had any online-only "friends", I'd probably consider it wise if they Googled such "friends" and still kept them in the dark about private items. On the other hand, I'd consider it curious if anyone were to Google their real friends.

As TFS and TFA said, we're wired to have a relatively small group of friends whom we know quite well (and who know us in return) through regular exchanges in real life. All others are merely acquaintances (like members of a neighboring tribe whom we hear about but rarely encounter), even if deceptively labeled as "friends" by network or workplace. The friend word is really being abused nowadays.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Deep Esophagus]

The alternative, in the case of friends whose preferred form of communication is Facebook, is to use Facebook exclusively for actual friends. I don't add people I met online (and rarely even know their real names). I don't add friends-of-friends. I don't even add relatives of friends unless I know the relative personally. I don't add people I have encountered briefly in the recent past. I don't add people I went to school with and now don't remember their names or anything about them. With two or three exceptions, I don't add people I have never met in person. I don't add people who work at the same company I do (some 2000+ employees worldwide) unless I actually work with them on a regular basis.

The result? I actually know and care about and trust the people I call friends on Facebook, and have no trouble calling them friends in the classic sense. Facebook, like any other tool, can be used to improve your life or destroy it. Unfortunately most people can't tell the difference and allow it to do more harm than good.

Return to pre-20th century accountability

[michaelmalak]

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.

Re:Return to pre-20th century accountability

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Your take on anonymity in that old post remains just plain silly.

...anonymity was unique to the 20th century. In the 19th century, due to transportation constraints, everyone knew who you were and what you did.

No. Just...no.

Even in the late 19th century and certainly for all of history preceding that time, anyone who wanted anonymity could simply walk away. I've often thought that if I had been born in 1830 or so on the east coast of the U.S., before I reached my 20s I would have started walking west. I might have died in the first week. I might have achieved great things. I'll never know.

I do know, however, that anonymity was easily achieved in those days. Walk 10 miles, make up a new name for yourself, forget your past, and keep walking. Lather, rinse, repeat as often as your own personal demons or desires drove you to do so. Anonymity just came with the territory.

What we are facing in the near future is historically unique - a true, inescapable loss of anonymity made possible by a panopticon that never forgets, that is even learning to recognize our faces. That, imo, is a truly scary prospect.

Thank god it's not called "Fondle"...

[Anonymous Coward]

"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...

Getting it wrong...

[Nemosoft Unv.]

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?