Unintended Consequences Alert: You Can Now Respond to Facebook Comments from E-Mail

Even though I sometimes complain about Facebook here on the ReputationDefender Blog, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t use it. Privacy concerns aside, there are few better ways to keep in touch with friends and family. Now, according to the company, it’s going to be even easier to keep up those connections with the recently added ability to respond to comments on Facebook through your e-mail.

Even though I use Facebook, I wouldn’t say that I am on it all day. In fact, the only time I log-in (besides when I’m updating the ReputationDefender Facebook Fan Page of course) is when I get an e-mail prompt alerting me to some new message. Most of the time though, because I don’t want to stop what I’m doing to open Facebook in a new tab, I would wait to respond to the message or comment later. Of course, I usually am doing so much stuff online that sometimes I’d forget. With the ability to respond to comments through e-mail, this isn’t a problem anymore.

There’s a flip side to everything though, and, in this case, there could be some major unintended consequences for Facebook users that don’t understand the subtleties of e-mail. Most people have been conditioned to believe that e-mail is a safe and closed form of communication. Unless you’re sending a message to a massive group of people, there is an assumption that what you’re sending will only be seen by its intended recipient. People are beginning to recognize that Facebook on the other hand isn’t as closed as they thought it was.

By combining the worlds of Facebook and e-mail, some users may unintentionally update their Facebook profile with a message that they thought was private. I’ll admit, for most people this is an unlikely possibility, but as our social networking lives become more and more intertwined it’s not out of the question. With every new development, users have to relearn how to use social media technology appropriately. Along the way, there’s bound to be some accidents. It’s important that you make sure that you’re not the one making them.

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