A Fishy Facebook Friend
I yielded to peer pressure and have begun to lead a modestly active Facebook life.
Out of sensitivity to Christianity Today's average reader—with all due respect, sir, I could easily be your daughter—let me first answer the question on his mind. Facebook.com is an online social scene that boasts more than 30 million users and a daily subscriber growth of 150,000. The dream of its owners is that someday the site will render superfluous all other virtual hangouts and depositories of data (for example, the photo gallery Flickr.com). There's something healthy about the way this "social utility that connects you with the people around you" helps its users merge their social worlds. It can foster cohesion and transparency: I give an account of myself both to a friend from school whose profile brims with lascivious leers and to a friend who works for World Vision.
But critics see Facebook as a haven for stalkers and narcissists. In their view, Facebook helps people who need attention (doesn't everyone?) get it from others and give them some in return.
Whatever my deep-seated issues may be, I use the site to keep up with people I know personally—to learn what they read, do, see, listen to, taste, and care about. When a friend's status update said she was "grieving the death of a comrade, a young woman who was a noble advocate for peace in northern Uganda," I wrote a note to commiserate. If not for Facebook, I wouldn't have had that chance. I've also joined groups of like-minded people, including my master's degree class, the Wendell Berry Society—made up of fans of the neo-Luddite poet who must have a sense of irony—and This Is What a Feminist Looks Like.
I reserve intimacy for the incarnate realm, but I don't ...
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Angel
Why is "Mr. Mover" contacting someone he doesn't know personally to promote his conference, yet presenting himself to be her friend? That seems to be Ms/Mr Tennants point. Wisdom is proved right by her actions. Mt 11:19 Deception is no way to promote the gospel.
Teci Pulido
I get the writer's point about feeling that she might somehow be used --- she and her social capital as she also has a sphere of influence. But on the other extreme, I would feel more creeped out about a guy who I don't know who shows way more than "zero curiosity about me". Now that's a fishy friend, Facebook or elsewhere. If a person wants to make friends online, shouldn't he naturally talk about himself as a means for me to know him? If he didn't ask anything about me, perhaps (to give the benefit of the doubt) I am implicitly being given a chance to say as much or as little about myself as I want. To end, aren't conferences, websites, and everything else being used to spread the gospel? It cannot be called "spreading" if Mr. Mover only talks to the people who already know him, and only those who already know Christ. I hope the writer would be more open-minded and accommodating in the future --- but I appreciate that she was straightforward and respectful in her replies to Mr.Mover.
Mark
Leory: Lighten up, lighten up lighten up! I think that Agnieszka has some well-reasoned reservations about who would "befriend" her via Facebook. And I don't think she's "whin[ing] about the rules of engagement." I think she's using those rules to her benefit. And in the process, she's sharing with others the means by which we can all participate in the shaping of social norms within such virtual environments. If you find Agnieszka's protocols too distasteful for your liking, the answer is obvious in its simplicity. Don't "talk" to her...or about her.... Jon: I don't agree with your assessment that this is "one of the most petty articles...at CT". You say that "as Christians we can not be offended by such minor things...." Actually, I think that as Christians we are to show proper discernment in all things (re: Col 4:5, Eph 5:15) and perhaps Agnieszka is displaying a proper amount of "wisdom toward outsiders." "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread...." (Alexander Pope-1711)