Technology is all too pervasive and Facebook has proved this time and again, in the guise of personalization. Once again the social media giant has encroached on a very personal aspect – ‘your expected child’.
The network purports to be a messenger to let your friends and their friends know that you will soon have an addition to the family. It does so through an addition of the option ‘Expected: Child’ in the Edit Profile menu.
Scott Campbell, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan is of the opinion that the Facebook feature makes it a very clinical way to share what some consider very sacred information.
It seems for Facebook announcing a child is as casual as updating job information!
Many Twitter users have described the feature as, ‘creepy.’
If you want to go the clinical way of announcing your joy to the world this is what you will have to do: Go to the ‘Edit Profile’, then select ‘Friends and Family’ and from the ‘Select Relation’ drop-down menu choose ‘Expected: Child.’ If this excites you, you can go the whole hog and include the date on which the baby is due, its name or nickname, if you have already chosen one.
If you opt to make the announcement on Facebook, may be you are oblivious to the feelings of an aunt who comes to know of your pregnancy through a news feed or a congratulatory post on your wall! And, are you sure those people that congratulate you are really your ‘friends?’
Also, be aware of who are the friends in your network. Does your employer feature in your Friends and did you really mean to let him know of your condition, now and in this manner?
Thousands of parents-to-be have created Facebook profile pages for their yet-to-be-born children vindicating Facebook’s action. So, it seems Facebook has its finger on the pulse of its users.
The addition of the unborn child takes the total number of family members on Facebook to 17. The other 16 are : Daughter, Son, Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, Nephew, Cousin – Female, Cousin – Male, Granddaughter, Grandson, Grandmother and Grandfather.
To give credit to Facebook, it has always been on the lookout to add features that allows its members to personalize their profiles. A few months ago the social network added two new relationship status options – “in a civil union” and “in a domestic partnership.” This took the total number of relationship statuses on the social network to 11, which also include single, in a relationship, engaged, married, it’s complicated, in an open relationship, widowed, separated and divorced.
What if you make use of Facebook’s latest feature and announce to the world that you are expecting and later, unfortunately, have a miscarriage? Facebook does not have an option for that one, yet!
Reference: www.zdnet.com