When do we feel awkward on social networks? I got to think about this question when looking at a very funny and awkward list of the funniest facebook messages. Here is a sample:
Things get awkward when contexts collide. When your boss is able to tap into the stream that should go to another social circle, and when the mom starts to responds to a stream that was not intended to be on her way. In most cases, a single social network plays a role in a single context. For example, LinkedIn is for business, Twitter is for friends/internet acquaintances, and Flickr is for family (in my case, anyway). But if a social network wants more than that, wants to accommodate more contexts of a user’s life, it needs to install privacy controls that do more than protect sensitive information.
Facebook might be the best example for a social network that tries to encompass all. User’s networks on facebook are becoming amazingly crowded with very different types of social circles: family, co-workers, current friends, past friends and the list goes on. Every new social circle introduces another context that the user need to take into account when sharing information, and every context introduces a new layer of complexity.
That may explain Facebook’s new privacy controls (seen on top). Users can now specify privacy settings for each photo, status message or link they share. A user can use these controls to show one status for family and another for friends. I suspect that after an adaptation period, most users will start to rely on it. It can defiantly protect users from the grim prospects of that poor worker mentioned above.
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