I feel like a creep. Social media and technology made me and everyone else into creeps.
With a constant stream of accessible information, I know too much about people and their private life. It’s not necessarily that I am seeking this information out. Rather it’s a constant presence and that is too prevalent to ignore. I certainly don’t want to know the girl I had in English class freshmen year is married with a kid and currently trying to potty train said kid.
What’s tech/social media savvy girl to do! Defriend people? I don’t think so. (It should be noted I fear I will run into those people I’ve deleted and that awkward hypothetical isn’t worth defriending.) To be a part of this generation you kind of have to participate in common modes of communication: texts, tweets, status, direct messages, etc. And you are going to be an inadvertent creep.
But there is a new creep feature to all of this mess I refuse to accept. It started this summer with Facebook messages and has moved to the iPhone. (If it’s on iPhone it won’t be long before it’s on Android.) That feature is “Seen” notification. It tells you the exact time someone reads your message or text.
Well that couldn’t possibly lead to crazy or obsessive behavior, could it? “Oh, I see read y text at 8:37 a.m. and now it is 4:13 p.m. Why haven’t you responded?” This feature will move you quickly past creep and right into crazy. I just don’t see any good from it. It just too bad none of this developers realize there is such a thing as too much information.