Why did Facebook change again after it changed not so long ago? That redesign was hard enough to endure, but everyone I know adjusted. Now, it's all different again and for what purpose? Even the chronic complainers seem particularly irritated.
What do we get and what did we lose? The box along the right hand of the homepage seems permanently programmed to show me things I completely do not want to see: groups I don't want to join, a ho-hum mobile upload of a friend at SxSW (I'm jealous), and a picture from a party I didn't go to (I checked "maybe" and should have had the courage to check "no"). I've seen these same items about 900 times this week - they are deadlocked.
Next, unless you sit and manually change all the "default" settings of every application you use or might use, everything you do, everything you touch on Facebook will be shared with your entire community. The Facebook designers must get paid by the post - sort of like Dickens was paid by the word. They tricked us into sharing more than we ever intended to share. I am addicted to Bejeweled Blitz, but I do not wish to share the frequency of my attempts to hit a new high score with everyone on my list. It makes me seem frivolous and I am not frivolous.
Some people claim Facebook is trying to keep up with Twitter, and the new home page does feel a little tweety. Others say the Facebook redesign is a conspiracy to distract us from what really matters in life, like the war in Iraq or the bonuses paid to AIG execs.
I worry that this redesign undermines the foundational principle of the Internet: anonymity. It's intimidating to think that everything I'm looking at, reading, "accepting," and writing is posted for all to see. I love to lurk and the new Facebook is like those motion sensor lights to keep out burglars. I'm just your neighbor - a friend stopping by when you're asleep. I wasn't actually going to ring the bell and wake you. It just makes me feel better to know you're home.
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