9/25/2011

Local look: Facebook redesign bothers some of its 800 million users :Security of information tops concerns


Sydney Dennis, 18, uses Facebook all day, every day. She uses it on her computer. She uses it on her phone.

But a website redesign launched last week has irked some of Facebook's 800 million users, including Dennis, who worry about the security of their personal information and fret about being too plugged in to the goings-on of their virtual friends.

"It's too much of your life on one website. There's certain information that's off-limits," said Dennis, an Abilene Christian University freshman.

She doesn't use Google+, the social media site that industry followers say served as the impetus for Facebook's overhaul.

Perhaps the biggest change Facebook announced is a new way to share information using third-party applications. In the old version, users who used apps had information sent to their friends' newsfeeds.

Under the new system, app updates will go to a real-time feed on the right-hand side of the page. This is called the "Ticker." The Ticker updates users on the minutia of their friends' lives: status updates, who planted what in Farmville and who's friends with whom.

Another change Facebook implemented mimics Google+'s ability to share information with subsets of online friends. That way, those pictures from last night's party are available to your buddies but not your parents.

Alicia Wyatt, dean of the School of Natural and Computational Sciences at McMurry University, explores the confluence of social media, learning and social interaction in users' physical and virtual lives for a living.

A self-proclaimed member of the "techy crowd," she said she's seen multiple online posts indicating people are planning to jump to Google+ and close their Facebook accounts.

But Facebook's updates may halt the exodus.

"Facebook has definitely jumped to the fray, competing with Google+," Wyatt said. "Both services are rolling out new features geared toward increasing site use and behind-the-scenes data mining."

That data mining is the real thorn for many. One of Facebook's new features is the ability for users to access information through online apps by using their personal data as currency. For example, some websites that only allow access to paying users are offering access to that information for free, if the users allow the website access to their personal information available on Facebook. Spotify, a music app, does this. So does The Wall Street Journal.

Chesney Dawson, a freshman at Abilene Christian University, said the data mining — and especially the loss of "Most Recent" news — makes her not want to use Facebook as much.

The former "Most Recent" feed is now consolidated with "Top Stories." Facebook said in a news release last week that the change is intended to mimic a newspaper: the biggest news goes on top, regardless if other news is newer.

"I don't like it because if you want to know what's going on right now, you can't just look and see it," Dawson said. "You have 'Top News,' and that may be important, but it's not necessarily the latest. Facebook is about the latest."

But other youths don't agree.

"I don't see why people are so mad," said Joe Lair, 19, of Abilene. "I don't think it's that big a deal. People just don't like change."

Lair uses Google+ daily, but it's a secondary site for him, far behind Facebook.

For some, it's all moot.

Diane Johnson, 45, doesn't use Facebook. Same for Duane Lyles, 52. Neither does Henry Alberts, 57, nor 17-year-old Jarod Williams.

"I just like talking to my friends in person," Williams said. "If I want to know what they're doing, I'll just ask."


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