Irish Independent
Have we all become perverts of late? Technology nowadays allows us to embrace the inner stalker within each and everyone of us.
In the age of Big Brother and Bebo, close monitoring of other people’s lives is only a click away.
Through television and the internet, we can embrace a novice yet covert method of stalking.
Information of every description is available through social networking websites (such as Bebo or Facebook).
You can instantly determine someone’s relationship status, see how many friends they have, observe who they are in regular contact with and which events they shall be attending.
Big Brother similarly provides us with a chance to be voyeuristic of complete strangers, allowing us to be privy into how the housemates interact, who they sleep with and who hates who. But why are we so interested in following the lives of strangers or people we hardly know?
After meeting someone or hearing a story about a friend of a friend, it is not considered weird to go and look them up on Bebo and view their profile.
Immediately we learn of information that we either didn’t need or shouldn’t know.
The ‘Bebo look’ is now a regular occurrence, whereby you meet someone out socially and you smile awkwardly because you know more information about them than you should and desperately try and play down any knowledge you have of their social lives that you have obtained through your hobby as a stalker.
Perverse
Whatever about stalking the profiles of people you know, what is perhaps more unhealthy is our avid interest in strangers.
Apparently we have too much time on our hands.
Is our perverse tendency to stalk only developing because information is so accessible, or has there always been an inner stalker trait to all our personalities? While it may only be human nature to be fascinated by how others lead their lives and although looking at facebook/myspace/bebo profile pages and Big Brother may only be a harmless practice, I fear it has opened up doors to a whole new level of unprofessional stalking.
Link to online version: Social Media Article- Irish Independent
Rowena Crowley 