Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Facebook: Send Me A Postcard!


At a garage sale not too long ago, I picked up some old LPs; an album by The Shocking Blue was among them. While they’re famous in the states for the tune “Venus” the songs here are a true reflection of rock and pop with some psychedelic sounds thrown in.

There's a song on the album called “Send Me a Postcard”. When was the last time you actually sent one? Perhaps the song title could be changed to “Send Me A PM” in reference to those private messages many of us send in Facebook.

And Facebook sure did surprise us once again yesterday, didn’t they? That little switcheroo in your info as far as what your primary email account is. No need to panic. It’s an easy fix. Just click on edit and all your email addresses are hidden there.

Now we can all wonder what happens when you send any email to a facebook.com email address but the truth is it goes into to your Facebook messages. A friend wrote to me last night and said is it because Facebook wants that information? Could be. Technically, they can see those "emails" since they would be within the world of Facebook.

So back to those postcards. Those thoughts written on those cards were seeable by any postal employee that cared to look. How come nobody ever made a big stink about that?

As our lives become more and more public think about the past. Going way back in time, people had party lines and your neighbors listened in to your conversations. And we accepted it. Technology takes a step forward and the way that our privacy is violated differs from days past, yet the truth is that our privacy has always been violated in some way, though on a larger scale now.

I'll still send postcards! A friend insisted on getting one when I went abroad last year. That’s the last one I sent. But hey, they’re fun! People are surprised when they receive them, and it’s a good old fashioned personal touch. Let’s start a trend!




One final note on the latest Facebook fiasco. For those who never signed up for a Facebook email address, well, you’ve got one now!  And if your profile is public, anyone can go into your info and see it. That’s the consequences for having a public profile. And we know that Facebook makes changes without warning. A good reason to limit the number of eyeballs on your personal profile; who knows what they’ll do next?

While you can’t get rid of the facebook.com email, you can change the settings so that it’s only seeable by you. In the contact info, just click on edit and you’ll see two columns. The first allows you to set who can see the email address; the second allows you to have the email address show or be hidden. Simple!

Enjoy the song that inspired this post!
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