Facebook Literacy

1) People post links instead of just explaining them.  You have to be able to read.  News stories are all about the same subject, like an epistolary story.  People have arguments prompted by the posts.  If you visit a page, chances are that you are interested in the subject.  It’s like a social performance of everyone agreeing and rallying around their beliefs.  They make new terms that are contextual, ex: “traditional” + “marriage” in the dictionary does not mean the same thing as “traditional marriage” as discussed on an LGBTQ page.

2) Profile pictures are giving brief descriptions of themselves – how they want to be seen, communicated quickly.

3) Online practices are generally more exaggerated of offline practices.  ex: people are waaaay meaner on the internet than they would be in person.  Trolls (no evidence). 

4) Publically shown private discussion on walls.  If it’s really private and you don’t want anyone to see you go to chat.  It’s awkward if an older relative comments on a conversation.  When it’s a birthday, everyone says “Happy Birthday” even if they don’t know them – it’d be rude for the birthday person not to “like” all the posts or to send out a generic “thank you”. 

5) Using ‘like” to end an awkward conversation that is going on too long.  If it was in person you’d say “oh, it’s 2 o’clock I have to get going!” but you wouldn’t type that out on Facebook.