Doctorow predicts that Facebook will die

Via BoingBoing, of course. Here's his reasoning, with my emphases:

For every long-lost chum who reaches out to me on Facebook, there's a guy who beat me up on a weekly basis through the whole seventh grade but now wants to be my buddy; or the crazy person who was fun in college but is now kind of sad; or the creepy ex-co-worker who I'd cross the street to avoid but who now wants to know, "Am I your friend?" yes or no, this instant, please.

It's not just Facebook and it's not just me. Every "social networking service" has had this problem and every user I've spoken to has been frustrated by it. I think that's why these services are so volatile: why we're so willing to flee from Friendster and into MySpace's loving arms; from MySpace to Facebook. It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system and send out some invites (of course, chances are at least one of those invites will go to someone who'll groan and wonder why we're dumb enough to think that we're pals).

Weird. I have had no compunction against ignoring Facebook friend requests if I don't know the person and they're not in my professional area. (That's what I use Facebook for: professional networking.) If as Doctorow says, "It's not just Facebook and it's not just me," then maybe it's me. Or maybe people will have to learn not to be passive-aggressive on social networks.

How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook -- Facebook -- InformationWeek

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