From a blog post I wrote: Zuckerberg refers to this as “frictionless sharing,” a dream of a kind of meta-panopticon with which everyone can see what everyone e

From a blog post I wrote: Zuckerberg refers to this as “frictionless sharing,” a dream of a kind of meta-panopticon with which everyone can see what everyone else is doing in real time. There are parts of this that I actually find kind of compelling. The Ticker is a nod toward “ambient intimacy” the idea that you can approximate the low-level intimacy of occupying the same space as someone, in a digital way. But, by being public, the Ticker fails at achieving intimacy. Because if being in the same room with someone creates intimacy, being in the same room as everyone creates the opposite. It turns all of your activity into performance. And what many have hinted at is that removing friction from sharing just displaces that friction. If everything I do on the web is under the public gaze, I have to reflect for a moment before I take any action — before I listen to a song, watch a video, play a game, or click on a link. It simply moves the friction from sharing onto the activity, in the worst kind of self-censorial way. http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/10755504272/intimacy-and-performance-on-facebook http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/10755504272/intimacy-and-perf...