Required reading for everyone with a Facebook

I just came across this incredibly relevant and interesting article from “The Bygone Bureau” blog on the falsehood of the death of the ‘busy body’ - that little old lady that always used to peek through the blinds so she could get the dirt on the neighborhood and spread it to her bridge playing friends. Remember Gladys Kravitz, the pesky neighbor immortalized in the 1960’s sitcom Bewitched? That’s the type I’m talking about.

The author of the article now believes that all of us - you, me, the kid setting next to me in the library right on Facebook - are the new Mrs. Kravitzs of the world. We know everything about all of our Facebook friends and aren’t afraid to spread it.

The author writes:

“I would take that a step further and suggest that social networking is roping our personal worlds — all of our acquaintances spread across our lifetime and the globe — into one blue-and-white small town. And peering through the blinds at our neighbors and crushes from middle school isn’t some old lady. It’s me, you, and everyone we’ve ever met.

But every time I start a sentence with the phrase “I saw on Facebook…” I remind myself that I’m sporting the verbal-equivalent of a housecoat and hot rollers. Repeating information gleaned from Facebook without bothering to couch it in some ambiguous “I-heard-somewhere” statement is the new format of gossip, and it’s becoming more prevalent everyday.”

She is just so spot on. We really are guilty. Welcome to a new frontier my friends. If you’ve got a Facebook, you gotta read this.