Facebook gives me the creeps

Facebook creeping: We’ve all been guilty of it.

Whether it’s the profile of that former fling or the person who has seemingly endless drama in their life, there is always a person on the Facebook news feed who compels you to click and read about their lives.

While you’re used to actively clicking in order to see your friend’s pictures with one another and seeing their posts to each other via the news feed, Facebook has taken it one step further by adding the “see friendship” function.

With this new feature, users can see each others’ entire Facebook friendship history. Before, you had to actively reminisce by clicking “wall-to-wall” and actually going to a friend’s profile to see their pictures and status updates.

Not only can you now see your own “friendships,” you can see any interactions two of your friends have had, too. This is perfect, I thought: I’ve always wanted to see every link Ryan posted on Anna’s wall, as well as every cute picture they’ve ever had taken together.

Then I got to thinking about how much I trust each of my 716 Facebook friends. Does the kid I went to elementary school with need to know about everything I do or say on Facebook?

There is also the person whose profile I just always want to look at  — or, let’s face it, creep on — and this new application encourages it. With “wall-to-wall,” I could see what I wrote on another friend’s Facebook wall and actively seek out what others wrote on one another’s.

Think you had to have some recent contact with friends to find the link? Think again. I can simply type in two friends’ names and click “see friendship” to see their entire shared Facebook history laid out before me. And that is just plain weird.

Now that one creep, who sits online in a dark room with Cheeto-stained fingers  and whose Facebook friendship you accidentally accepted long ago — you know who you are — can instantly access any online connection you’ve ever made.

Never before has it been so easy to learn about someone’s personal life. While I understand that everything posted on Facebook is public, I fail to see the advantage of making the public information so easily accessible.

As a journalist, I am all for transparency when it comes to public records. However, someone wishing another “happy birthday” is not as important to democracy as, say, documentation of government spending or something similarly important.

Could Facebook get any creepier than the aforementioned person with Cheeto-fingers? Will they allow users to sign up for notification alerts every time a certain friend actively uses Facebook?

At the end of the day, there will always be creepy people, and the Internet has already allowed for huge advancements in the world of creeping — we don’t need to help facilitate the process.

Here’s to Facebook making it easier for the friend of that crazy ex to track your every move.

Stay classy, creepers.