Question:

Irrationality on Facebook

by Guest3663  |  12 years, 9 month(s) ago

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Thousands of people became extremely upset a while back when Facebook tweaked its service agreement, telling its members, in essence, that they'd have less control of their information than they might have thought (after protests, it went back to the old agreement).

But why was this wrong?

Michael Stefanone, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Buffalo, is fascinated by how conflicted people are as they build their new online worlds. They want to unload all of their secrets online, but they don't want to be reminded of how public they just made that information.

"Irrational" is his word for it.

People are certainly upset when they're cued to actively think about the public nature of this information, but they still engage in the behavior. I'm not sure how to explain it. ... Except that it's framed as acceptable, normal and desirable. That's the thing - sharing like this is seen as a good thing.

 Tags: facebook, irrationality

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2 ANSWERS

  1. Maravarman
    i actually think facebooks wanting to change the agreement was unfair.. it was irrational of 'them' to expect people getting to living a few steps lower than before, with a little less freedom.. thats a hard thing to do.. no?

  2. Merlyn
    how many people do you have on your face book who you barely know? surely many!
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Latest activity: 15 years, 2 month(s) ago.
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