Facebook is an interesting tool. Once used only by college students it has grown to include everyone from elementary school students, to grandmothers to public figures. It is used as a tool for procrastination by people, to creep on future love interests and to promote a product or idea. Once a way to only keep in contact and share pieces of people's lives with people who were supposedly "friends" now it is a necessary piece for a company to survive as well as ideas to be shared. But is the need to be constantly connected all the time a good thing? Is it a good thing that the way products, public figures or idea survive is through Facebook? or if a person that doesn't have Facebook considered weird? When did we go from a society of people to a society of profiles?
I will not argue that I enjoy Facebook and like the way that it keeps me connected to the world. I will not also argue against that it has helped business survive and ideas gain ground, especially in revolutions. But I will argue is there ever a chance that Facebook is perpetuating something that could get out of hand. Is it help move us to a world where people and ideas are only a profile? So then I ask is Facebook a Social Tool or a destruction of Social Interaction?
Dave Egger recently wrote a very creepy novel on just that question, "The Circle." http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Dave-Eggers/dp/0385351399.
ReplyDeleteI believe the question you pose can be categorized as a slippery-slope argument. It reminds me of something that happened during Medieval times. Imagine it. You are a knight atop your trusty steed. You are both covered in shiny metal armor, riding through the wonderful Medieval countryside when, WHAM, you are struck by a bolt from a crossbow. You reach your hand up shakily to you chest where the bolt barely protrudes from your thick steel plate and you look 100 meters to your right. A measly peasant standing there with a crossbow cackles at you and watches you fall to your knightly death. Oh, the humanity! You, a knight, were just killed by a peasant!
ReplyDeleteHere's where things get interesting. Although the knights were normally killed in battle by these archaic crossbows, they just could not get over the fact that they could be wielded by peasants. The knights got bum hurt and whined to the Pope, yes, The Pope, that this was happening and the Pope outlawed the use of crossbows because of the imminent destruction of all things good and sanctimonious. Yet, hark m'lady, the birds still sing and the sun still rises in the east: we are still here! Somehow humanity has nimbly sidestepped imminent destruction at the hands of crossbow wielding peasants.
But, we are not out of danger yet, you say? What is that? We now face the destruction of social interaction by the hands of… (dum dum dum) Facebook?
I am not a supporter of Facebooking nor do I speak out against the Facebookery (what? we came up with the term googling, didn't we?). But I do not think it to be either A) the bee's knees or 2) the destruction of social interaction. Do you remember everyones friend Tom; AKA, Facebook 1; AKA, MySpace? The same things are being said about that site that are being said about Facebook today. I honestly believe Facebook became so popular because people needed to ween themselves off MySpace with something less, um, socially immature(?).
So, to finally answer your question: no, Facebook is not the destruction of social interaction and yes, it is a social tool, albeit a powerful one. Personally, I think this shows a shift in the way people are toying around with technology to see what it, like granger, can do for you.
Hallie I think you bring up a great question. There is one phrase in your post that I want to comment on. You asked if Facebook is "perpetrating something that could get out of hand". I think this easily fits into our various definitions of revolution. Perhaps it isn't the Facebook Revolution but something different and much broader. In researching for my Zine I couldn't help but marvel at the length of time that we deem the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps we are in the middle of another technological revolution and Facebook is just a small facet, like gas lamps or steam engines were for the early 1800's.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Kit! I was looking at a lot of modern day revolutions and most of them involve Facebook in some facet. So it may not even be a part of a technological revolution, though I do think it is, but a perpetuator. It is interesting at how much the way we communicate now is through social media. It has essentially changed the way we communicate or at least how we think about communicating. So I agree, that it could be a small part in a bigger revolution occurring right now.
ReplyDeleteI am torn when it comes to Facebook. I see that there is undoubtedly good and bad to the website.
ReplyDeleteI personally am not a big fan. I don't like posting anything on the internet, really. I would far prefer the in person communication or even emailing back and forth. For some reason, I just don't like having anyone and everyone find out how I'm feeling at a given moment, especially if it's inconsequential or a negative emotion - I don't want those parts of my life being preserved forever for the public's view.
I do think that social networking is a revolution in the way members of society communicate. It helps people stay in contact across the globe, but it also prevents people (sometimes) from getting up and going to see who they want to talk to.
Regarding the love seeking.... My mom met her fiancé when she was at Paul Smiths, a small forestry school on the east coast. They hadn't spoken since then, but with the surge of everyone getting a Facebook and searching for old friends, they started talking again. At first I was saying "This is why parents shouldn't get Facebook," but I got over the bitterness and am now unbelievably grateful for what Facebook did for my mom.
I'm conflicted. It has good purposes, but like everything else we seem to talk about, it can easily be used in other, negative ways.