Text is not Dead

Have you ever found out that your friends are broken up over Facebook? I have. No longer are the days of long tearful phone calls, whispers around the office, or discussing who’s going to tell whom and how. And, it’s not just coming from Jon & Kate, who somehow feel that divorce and pain are entertainment; people of celebrity status and those of not-so-celebrity status are using Facebook as a sounding board of all things private. Samantha Henig points out that people have nearly an equal fascination with watching the personal pain of someone, regardless of that person’s celebrity status.

If we can’t bump into the former homecoming queen at the grocery store (OMG she works at the grocery store now? And did you hear she got dumped by her high school sweetheart who we were all sure she’d marry, like, the day after graduation?), we can at least follow her fall from grace remotely.

As some would say in our class, this development is another example of how social media has actually de-socialized us as a culture. The private becomes public, and the awkward becomes as easy as typing a 140 character update. I am not at all surprised at this change. However, I didn’t expect the trend to become story-worthy.

However, the activity is not what bred the story; it was the repercussions. Increasingly people are learning to utilize these social media tools to better their business, network, and do their job more effectively. And, lawyers found Facebook during a divorce to be a treasure trove- or cesspool depending on one’s perception- of information about their own clients, and most importantly, the other side.

Belinda Luscombe wrote about this issue in Time Magazine :

Lawyers, however, love these sites, which can be evidentiary gold mines. Did your husband’s new girlfriend Twitter about getting a piece of jewelry? The court might regard that as marital assets being disbursed to a third party. Did your wife tell the court she’s incapable of getting a job? Then your lawyer should ask why she’s pursuing job interviews through LinkedIn.

The video below shows that lawyers are actually getting training in this arena.

Because Facebook has become a medium used for publicizing information (journalistic or otherwise), divorce becomes a part of the medium. All those tragic details will sit one someone’s hard drive forever.

Amanda Fortini compared it to a theater:

Unfortunately… it may be unavoidable, as Facebook is the theater where some of life’s most chaotic, catastrophic and bewildering moments are now being played out. Not even the rich or famous are immune: Chelsea Davy, ex-girlfriend of Prince Harry, made the demise of their five-year relationship official (and officially public) by changing her status to “single.” The quick, unceremonious execution of the Facebook breakup — it’s like ripping off a bandage.