Facebook the tattertale

I got told off this morning.

All because Edgeworld, a game I’m playing on Facebook, sneakily told all my friends that I’m playing it.

A lot of Facebook games do that, in fact. You can’t even log in to Facebook these days without everyone immediately knowing that you’re at the moment skiving off instead of working/studying/blogging.

So, this was what happened.

I totally didn’t know an update was posted when I logged into the game, and then suddenly I got a notification that someone had commented on my activity.

 

Tattertale!

 

To further illustrate my point about Facebook games being sneaky tattertales, there was this one morning when I woke up and went about my daily routine, which was:

  1. Turn on computer.
  2. Turn on MSN and say hi to Piers.
  3. Open all my current Facebook games to use up stored energry/collect daily credits etc. Then, if I have time, play for a bit.

((I know it looks like a very sad routine but looks are deceiving so let’s leave the judging for another time because today’s topic is not to discuss my Internet/gaming addiction (although the word I prefer is passion)).

So in the midst of doing my routine this one morning, an MSN message suddenly flashed on my screen:

 

“You logged in to Edgeworld before saying hi to me!”

 

Now, before you get the wrong idea about Piers, he was just teasing me and not being stalkerish. It’s impossible to develop an impulse to stalk a girlfriend who wants to stay home all day and play games. I would say I’m quite safe from having a stalkerish boyfriend.

To clarify the situation, I did in fact turn on MSN before I opened my games, but it’s just that Chrome loaded my games a lot faster than MSN signed in, so it would have appeared to stalkers, should I actually have any, that I prioritised games over going on MSN.

This incident brought home the point that Facebook is quite dangerous so we should never add our bosses, teachers, parents, elders and people we don’t like on it.

Who knows what other kinds of things, in the future, Facebook will tell about us without us knowing.

 

I didn't post that!

 

Of course, we can (and should) try to be more careful. And if we strive to be honest and reliable and diplomatic in all things, we don’t have to worry about Facebook telling on us.

Like, if you wanted to turn down a date from someone you don’t really fancy, just say no and don’t come up with stupid excuses like “I broke all my fingers so I can’t come out” and then the next thing is he sees you playing Edgeworld on Facebook.

I’m sure I’m not saying anything new here. Everyone already knows the dangers of Facebook. But then people still keep getting caught in embarrassing situations. We really can’t be too careful.

In the meantime, I’m not too worried. I can live with the odd person telling me I game too much. Not that it’s even news, duh.

And Justyn should be quite happy now so I should be able to log in to Edgeworld without further repercussions.

It is very hard to please everyone but that doesn’t mean we can’t try our best.

So, be happy and make people happy! Just don’t burp or pick your nose when Facebook is watching.

3 thoughts on “Facebook the tattertale

  1. Avatar

    All they care is automatic updates of status without first thinking about the ethics of doing so. Yikes! I’ll never forget the experience of reading memes. They forced readers to “like” in order to read further, who knew they dirtied my profile.

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