Weekends ago, I spoke to a friend whom I did not have direct communication for quite sometime, at another friend's wedding ceremony.
I remember one very interesting part of our conversation (besides that insight he provided me about football betting industry) was about the usage of Facebook.
To him, Facebook should be seen as a private sphere, one shall not invade people's (wall) space too much with pushing/hard selling some business or political ideas. He wants to put Facebook for lighter use (such as entertaining news and jokes) and for updating with other people's life. He would not have a second thought to put a strict restriction to those users who 'violate' his privacy space.
To me, I see Facebook as a virtual public space. Spams and forceful direct-selling , of course I don't welcome too. However, my intention is always to make my Facebook wall and its news feed open to serve as an informative and learning centre, a public place where opinions and thoughts exchanged are greatly encouraged. I enjoy the freedom of speech or expression there, not only to spread my ideas, thoughts or opinions, but also be able to exchange with others and join others' discussion. For sure, in order to achieve that, I must have that set of friends who are more often than the rest to make a positive contribution and to share their original thoughts that spark the discussion or debate. There are some 'friends' in my list, are public figures or bordering to public figures. Some might not really know me in real person before FB, but FB just manage to expand my social network , to bridge me with other like-minded personals. Through that process, FB benefits me a lot, widen my knowledge and perspectives.
Despite I am enjoying also light moments on FB wall , and delighted to learn about others' life, I am rather conservative in sharing my private life. I guess, I quite rarely use FB to tell people about my whereabouts, about what I did at that time point, to rant or grumble about certain things or person (within my real life circle). I only spread my words about the current status, if there is any big event happening or had happened, at which my friends are supposed to know or get updated about. I do not intend to spam people's wall with daily itinerary, just because I don't think that would benefit much to those who read it. I do think that, the real life interpersonal relationship should retain its role, should not be distorted by the virtual social networking. If you care about someone, you would take the initiative to ask his or her well-being, and probably invite him or her out to get together and update with each other. For friendship, direct face to face meeting is still always the best and the most sincere way of communication. It is also the best sign and gesture of appreciating someone. =)
Sometimes, some personal feelings or thoughts, I would rather to share them only on my blog, because the blog is certainly a private space of mine. There is still a huge difference between FB and Blog. Most of the people would just let the news feed passively flowing onto FB wall, and they read it not because they initially want to nor that they genuinely care to know about it. For personal blog, it is different. If someone really cares about me, he or she would perhaps bookmark my blog, and go take his/her initiative to check me out just because they care to know about me. In blog, they could seldom miss my post ('coz I am not a heavy blogger), but on FB news feed or FB wall, very soon the post will be fading into backlog and you probably don't notice it anything you have just missed. Blog is my space, I have the total freedom to do what I like , without causing some sensitive people discomfort or irking some others just because they think I took away some precious seconds of their attention and have spammed their wall (should they not enjoy my post). However, I would feel shameless and guiltless to post or to share something on FB, if i deem it to be informative, inspiring or could benefit someone (if not all friends). Sometimes I could also well tune and target my audience differently by using specific language I know, due to a diverse background of friends I know from all over the globe.
