The Creepiest Facebook App Yet: “Monitoring” Relationship Statuses

February 21, 2011 at 8:54 PM (Musings) (apps, Facebook, relationships, social media)

Yup.  Those of you with crushes coupled with stalker-like tendencies can rejoice: you can now be notified via Email as soon as someone’s relationship status changes on Facebook.  Aptly named Facebook Breakup Notifier, the app is pretty straightforward: log-in, select your friend(s) who are tragically spoken for, and wait for that glorious little notification Email that gives you the go-ahead to move in for the kill.

Yikes.  This is one of many reasons why I’m glad I don’t share my relationship status on Facebook.  I don’t even know where to begin on this one.  It’s an unsettling reminder that thanks to social media, information barriers are gradually melting away.  As a result, in my humble opinion, so are human courtesies.  We spend so much time tethered to our screens that we often forget to socialise in real life.  You know, with the people sitting next to you at the bar.  Communication has largely slipped into an “at my convenience” mentality.  We send a text message rather than making a phone call. We check a Twitter or Facebook feed to see what a friend has been up to, rather than asking.  And now we can even monitor relationship statuses of people who we might want to target for the next romantic venture.

If you care that much about someone, wouldn’t you find out soon enough if he or she is available because you talk to them, oh, I don’t know, regularly?  I would imagine that a breakup would surface in conversation fairly quickly.  Oh wait, you don’t talk to this person regularly?  How do you know you’re interested in the first place?  The extent to which technology manages to delude us continues to baffle me.