• by Kelly , October 18, 2007

I have always been able to easily navigate my way through a website. So, when Facebook came along I immediately became acclimated to it.

After Facebook had been around for a year and people became smart enough to set their profile to privacy, I still found a way to get information on them. Even if it was only a picture - which was usually the case - I still had information.

Now, by no means am I stalking random people just for laughs, it's for very practical reasons. . . .

For instance, my roommate once asked me if I knew this male student because she was scheduled to work with him on a project and she wanted my opinion on his work ethic. So, since I couldn't put a face with a name we went straight to Facebook for information. Unfortunately, he had his profile set to private. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the privacy setting, if you set your profile to private to everyone in your network, except your friends, then your picture doesn't even show up...it's a question mark and the person's name. So, in order to find out who this guy was I basically used the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" technique. And, to my roommate's surprise, but not mine, I found a picture of him. Good, huh?

Now, most people say, "Wow, what a stalker!" I laugh it off because I know they don't mean stalker in the serious sense...it's just Facebook lingo. I'm a student trying to find information on a networking website...isn't that the intention of Facebook? Never mind that my purpose isn't always so noble.

But again, I have always been able to easily navigate my way through a website, why would Facebook be any different? It's just a slightly different strategy.