When I first heard about Formspring I was very excited. It sounded familiar and  comforting ,something like you would bake a cake in.  Only then I realised I was thinking about spring form. Formspring it turns out, is nothing like cake, it is not sweet, and to me it doesn’t sound like a very well baked idea.

Its premise is simple – it allows you to “find out more about your friends by asking and responding to interesting questions.”  I believe they use the term friends loosely.

Formspring was launched in 2009 and while it still stands alone it was  also absorbed into Tumbr at the time and it quickly went viral with millions of users a month. In fact some months it boasts over 50 million users.

But here is the problem. Unlike other forms of social media like Facebook and Twitter where you control what you write, the whole point of Formspring is that you don’t. Instead, you answer the questions that other people ask. Questions which are often nasty, provocative and inflammatory.

For kids and teens, this can be a disaster.

Rachel Simmons in her book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls writes:

And as if that is all not bad enough what many people don’t realise is that all the questions and answers on Formspring are indexed meaning if you use Formspring everything you say and all the answers that people have given about you are available publicly to anyone wishing to Google you.

Have I put you off yet?

Have you joined Formspring?  Is it just another social media device or is it a platform for abuse and bullying? Would you ever want to answer questions posed to you by strangers?