I’ve always been a strong proponent of the ability to balance the personal and professional on social websites like Facebook, through Friends Lists, Privacy Settings, and careful judgment. But I have to admit that over the past few months I’ve started to have doubts. While I have been diligent in my use of custom settings and my own discretion, Facebook is a social entity and therefore not everything can be strictly controlled – friends can make inappropriate remarks in comments and Wall posts, Facebook privacy settings often change without warning, and due to human error or absentmindedness, some friends may not make it onto the appropriate Lists. In sum, I’m beginning to wonder if the constant vigilance is worth the trade-off of maintaining one account.
The Lockdown
I’ve got my Facebook profile pretty locked down. While my friends are allowed to make posts on my Wall, their tagged photos and videos do not get shown to anyone but me. I have Friends Lists set up for nearly every area of my life and most of my status updates are limited to viewing by my “Real-Life” friends. Photo albums which I create are almost always hidden from my “Professional” friends. I’ve noticed that many of my friends have even disabled the ability for people to see who their other friends are, while others have blocked friends from posting to their wall or making comments on any of their posts.
Friends…Gotta “Like” ‘Em
Since I want to interact with my friends and professional connections via the network, my friends are able to post to my wall and make comments on my posts and photos. But I must say that I have on occasion seen friends – both personal and professional – post truly cringe-worthy thoughts on my Wall as well as their own. And this is the risk that we all take when friending new people on the social network. Oftentimes we may not even know the person we are adding to our circle, they may be a potential professional contact, or someone we’ve just met at an event. Short of requesting a writing sample and a pledge to post responsibly, we are pretty much rolling the dice with new contacts. I’ve often wished for more granularity with Facebook’s privacy settings, such as the ability to place permissions on individual friends, or restrictions on individual photos within albums, however with several hundred contacts and photos, I don’t know if I’d really want to be bothered.
Alternatives
And that brings me to the alternatives – what are they? One option is to create a completely separate, personal Facebook account to which I migrate all of my existing “real-life” friends. I’ve noticed quite a few of my friends from other fields have done this already by simply not friending anyone professional through Facebook, but limiting those friends to LinkedIn only. In the library world it’s not so simple as we all use Facebook as a communication medium as well as a social network. When I first set up my Facebook account I was determined to use it only as a professional tool, however Web-based social networking has become so pervasive in our culture that nearly everyone I meet soon asks me, “What’s your Facebook?”.
I’m curious as to how other people are dealing with balancing the personal and professional on social networks such as Facebook? Have you shifted to completely separate personas, or have you found a comfortable middle ground?