Once upon a time (July 5, 1993) The New Yorker published a cartoon with a caption that generated one of the first real Internet memes: "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." That cartoon not only showed that the geek superpower of being online had gone mainstream, it also (subtly) let everyone know that users of online services could actually "be" someone different online and hide any aspect of their actual identity from all the other people going online.
Somewhere between there and here (in a temporal sense), online socialization became "social networking" and then Social Networking. The exact date is hard to pin down but all of a sudden the idea that individuals who spent time online were maladjusted, socially inept loners was replaced with the idea that one was not truly connected to one's friends or aware of one's world unless one posted every thought, preference, idea, photo, and action online in a way that made them all instantly accessible to everyone else in cyberspace.
Once upon a time, that too was optional... but no longer.
I recently encountered a problem with a major online service. (I will not mention the company's name here, but I can tell you that it begins with the next-to-last letter of the standard English alphabet, often appears with an exclamation mark at the end, and is allegedly an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchically Officious Oracle".) The problem was minor, but... well, it was annoying, and I wanted to both communicate my annoyance and, if possible, find some way to restore something that had been lost. The search for an obvious "feedback" link did not go well, but eventually I noticed a small link at the bottom of the web page that looked like it would allow me to send a question to the company's user support organization (or at least post it to a user forum where someone might have already posted a solution to the problem).
Imagine my surprise when I finished typing my two-part comment/question and clicked the link to proceed to the next step in the process... and was required to log in. Correction: I clicked the link to proceed to the next step in the process and was required to log in even though I was already logged in and the system was addressing me by name.
My first reaction was to say something extremely impolite about the web browser I was using, quit from the application, and start over. I went to the company's site, logged in, verified that it had my profile correct, returned to the contact page, re-typed my question...
...and the stupid thing again asked me to log in all over again.
I took a deep breath, then took a closer look at the pop-up window in the middle of my screen. This was more than a simple login request; there were tabs featuring the logos of other online companies (including a couple I was not familiar with). For a moment I thought the site had been hijacked by hackers and I was on the verge of being victimized by a phishing attack -- then realized I was looking at a legitimate login request because the company wanted me to share my request for help with everyone in the world through a social network.
Huh?
I was attempting to tell the company that I was having a problem with their service, and that I was less than thrilled with a particular change they had made to the navigation features of their site. If there was a company-specific user forum, it made sense to share my notes there because that was a place for users of this service to discuss this service... but what they wanted me to do (in actuality were requiring me to do) was turn my service note into a public post on Facebook, or Google+, or any number of other social networks. (By the way, a semi-closed, dedicated user forum specific to this company allegedly does exist separate from any general-purpose social networks.)
At this point my mood changed from "annoyed" to "downright angry" and I again shut down my web browser without providing more login information. I was using Service Y; I was logged into my personal account with Service Y; I was experiencing a problem with Service Y; I was attempting to contact user support within Service Y; I was using internal contact pages belonging exclusively to Service Y... Why the blazes did they insist I share everything with services A through Z (and probably a some using Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, and other alphabets as well)?
Unfortunately, my curiosity waxed as my anger waned, so I repeated the process all over again (although by this time my original 2-point quick note had grown into a 5-point near-rant). When I reached the login pop-up, I chose the Google login that I use for my blog and the system very quickly recognized me.
But the system did NOT allow me to post/send/share/whatever my note.
What the system did at that point was require me to -- wait for it -- LOG IN AGAIN, this time to a THIRD service. Of course, it was an online service that I do not have an account with, so I was presented with a fairly comprehensive "Create Your New Account Profile!" page that was asking me for the same information that I had presumably already provided twice by logging into Service Y and then logging into my Google account.
Let's just say that "annoyed" fell far short of completely describing my feelings at that moment. I was now faced with the dilemma of either keeping my questions to myself or sharing them with the entire planet through a service I had never heard of. The desired option of sharing my questions with only those individuals to whom it was addressed had been forcibly removed from the set of available options in the interest of making sure I was engaging in online social intercourse. (I have to be careful with that, since I have an allergy to Penicillin.)
I closed all the browser windows except for the original window where I had begun my sojourn and then somehow (I would gladly post the information here if I could remember how!) I managed to locate an actual link to an actual problem reporting mechanism that did not require me to share every word with every Internet user in the world.
I do not believe that I am a sociopath. I have friends with whom I speak, share meals, and "just hang out" semi-regularly in person; I have long conversations about many topics with co-workers and customers at work on a daily basis; I frequently engage in friendly "fluff" conversations with strangers queued up with me while shopping or observing the passing scene in public; and I actually do have social networking accounts on several services. What has me so annoyed is that I am (apparently) deemed incapable of deciding for myself what I will share, how I will share it, or when I will share it; Service Y (and, after a quick online check, numerous other companies) require that I "be social" at times of their choosing, take it or leave it.
The inference that we are all anti-social (maybe even sociopathic?) if we do not share absolutely every thought or comment with absolutely every person with a social network account (and, not coincidentally, provide them with a wealth of saleable marketing data) is invasive, and arrogant, and frightening.
And pretty damn annoying, to boot.
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