Article: Dr Mariann Hardey
Spending hours in front of my computer and constantly attached to my phone, my (rather inquisitive) mind has never before been so littered with various divergences, distractions and imaginary social instances. And whilst, yes, you can classify me as a GirlGeek which does pertain to a certain level of ‘technology enthusiasm’ lets call it, there are shared characteristics and behaviours with even my ‘non geeky’ friends which I’m calling the social snoop.
Such actions start innocently enough – looking at a friends Wall on Facebook, back-tracking their posts to other friends, then looking at their friends, taking a glimpse at tagged photos…
And then…
In my defence I would like to point to the possibilities afforded by the technology that allows for such social obsessions/digressions. In doing so my argument is about awareness – not only are my friends doing the same , but that they will also make their own judgements, and how you react and/or are aware of such activities reflects and affects your mood and, ultimately, your relationships.
Nevertheless, this particular social snooping state is addictive. I am proud to state that I have never intruded beyond the boundaries of public decency and where the good grace of friendship respect would not allow. Consequently (thank goodness) I have never unearthered the unexpected: a previously unknown dependency on drugs, internet porn, gambling, or some other wayward and socially disapproved activity of those in my network(s). BUT I shall confess this, that this type of social snooping has taken over parts of my everyday life, increasingly my creative energies, and has even infiltratrated into my sleep.
As it is difficult to try and pry oneself away from such veillance.The question is, should one?…
Putting these thoughts together I am already nose-deep into Sam Gosling’s psychological take on ‘other people’s stuff’ published in his book Snoop. His constructions of self comes from a celebration of what your ‘stuff’ says about you. In doing so, Gosling interprets from, for example, what people leave in their bathroom, to how they arrange their desk and order their bedroom to build up an interpretative picture of the inner self. Such elements of daily life are suggestive not only of elements of our character, but (I would contend) are now sat alongside the constant streams of social information from SNSs and other technology that can reveal our most personal qualities.
It strikes me that such perceptions fall into three categories.
1. The ‘fair game’ category: Where going through others social information is completely acceptable. Such feeds are broadcast as direct elements of your SNS newsfeed and make it permissible (and pleasing) to check out the related image uploads, wall posts etc.
2. The ‘sneaky game’ category: For those occasions when you have been following the fair game state of play, but find yourself clicking through to target specific information and/or people in other networks – including those whom you may not know. But this is not considered ‘a big deal’ since you share a friend in common right?… ummm…
3. Finally the red alert, red alert, red alert! ‘devious game’ category: Devious because you have had to employ time and thought into hacking into a private account. The main dividing line being the completely illegal and totally shameful set of actions that you now employ to turn a snoop into a potential scoop. I am pleased to say I have never ever (nor would I) do this and so can happily dismiss this level of snoopage!
But why are such actions so compulsive? A good friend of mine has justified her ‘devious game’ and red alert! actions as they took place during an ‘uncontrollable set of circumstances’ that conspired during a break up. Upon receiving a ‘mysterious text’, which contained the message: ‘do you know where ***** is tonight?’ Quite naturally she wanted to uncover some answers…
Following the sneaky game play I have uncovered some elements of from my own social snippets about friends, boyfriends and acquaintances – mostly when aided by a (vain) curiousity to know what exes of past boyfriends have been like, what SNS groups someone belongs to, the kinds of images they upload and share to Flickr and/or that their friends tag etc. And then comes the ultimate judgement – away from the snoop – interpreting what this says about them… However, there comes (before) the red alert! point when I (and so should you) feel the need to stop! and I recognise that enough is enough is enough. Crossing over to the dark side you run risk of invading (whether intentionally or not) into the lives of others and also making yourself look less than trustworthy and dishonest in the process.
In actuality the opportunity to snoop is a magnificent social divergence. Even so the clicking through of a tagged photo can quickly lead to a red alert situation! The result? Our actions have to be contextualised in measured proportions – so only snoop as far as you would want your friends to in your life…
Another version of this article was published at thesocialmediathinker/blogspot
Dr Mariann Hardey blogs at properfacebooketiquette/blogspot
About Dr Mariann Hardey
I hold the position of Lecturer in Social Media Marketing at Durham Business School. I also spend too much time enjoying social technologies, media+ stuff. That'll make me a Geek then. And a gal.
