Facebook Relatability
Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Craig Hickerson in Debate
If I were an alien observing Earth I would guess the primary form of communication used by college students was Facebook. Between the waking moments spent in online chat and the late night status updates, Facebook has become the way young adults relate to each other. Though Facebook is a superb way to keep in touch with long lost friends and family, is it really the best way to converse with the friends you would normally see in person? Do the functions and applications of Facebook really add something worthwhile to your relationships? Let’s take a deeper look at how Facebook affects your online relatability.
When you think about it Facebook is a surreal place. Just imagine what it would look like in the real world. Friends as Mafia members who carry out their dirty duties via pokes, and seemingly normal people in a cutthroat race to get fans for Big Franks. Have we entered some kind of morbid Candyland? One of the oddest Facebook traditions to me is your first interaction with people, the friend request. When I ask someone to be my friend, I know them. Even Big Franks is one of my old, childhood buddies. However, people of every kind love to ask for a place on my friend list. They may have some creepy message along with their request or simply a smiling profile pic, but every time I am left peering into their profile info and pictures trying desperately to remember where I met them. I would automatically delete them but this isn’t Myspace, there’s no token friend named Tom on this site! There are also those who you know but wish you didn’t. Usually they don’t feel the same way. After giving them a confident “Do Not Accept” it is only a matter of days until you are once again added and left to make the same decision. In my case, after awhile the redundancy gets to me and I’ll accept only to delete them a few weeks later. In all, this whole friend request game is absurd. It’s like slipping a little note to someone on the street asking, “Will you be my friend?” Even though the necessity of this kind of behavior is obvious for privacy and safety reasons, I find that collecting friends like Pokémon cards is a problematic format for conversing with people. This work flow becomes a game. Do people really know the friends they have on their list? Maybe, and maybe not, their mindset is that the more friends they have the better. This view—common at places like Costco—is detrimental. Confusing quality with quantity is a huge danger on Facebook and people need to realize this.
When surfing Facebook, one of the oddest phenomena is the core of Facebook itself: the wall. Beyond the profile photo or the Info tab, the wall projects the thoughts and feelings of you and your friends for the known world to riffle through. This ability to either peer into your friends’ most current events or yell out your own gives up-to-the-second information on the emotional status. For example, as those of you who have seen the movie Avatar know, the wall is like that life-force-thing which all the creatures on Pandora are connected to. When looking at an active friend’s wall it is as if one has plugged in their fiber-optic pony-tale to their trusty steed. When I was new to Facebook this experience was complete with the whole rush and pupil dilatation effect used in the film. So much information! In addition, most of the comments and posts were so personal I had to immediately un-plug and move on to a new friend, which was usually a similar experience to the first. You see, the wall is the real life equivalent of a shouting match between people who have taken an oath to use only witty comments. The wall is a contest of packaging your personal life with clever anecdotes only to be ripped open by others who think they can do it better. Though I admit to participating in the WWE (Witty Word Entertainment) I question the positive effect it has on my friendships. Because I do love being a contributor to discussion, I participate, but given the highly personal nature of many of the comments I have to withhold my need for wit at the cost of another’s emotional livelihood, I can only handle so much of the personal drama. Frankly, I don’t feel Facebook is the best outlet.
Perhaps the strangest characteristic of Facebook society is the fact that when you are on Facebook it becomes socially acceptable to be a stalker. From perusing pictures to checking status updates, it seems odd, but then you realize this is how Facebook functions. How else does one spend hours looking at a website with user generated content? Facebook exploits human curiosity, especially when it comes to the people you know and care about. It is only natural that we are interested in those we share our lives with. I know for myself, I love looking at pictures. It always amazes me the disconnect between how I see some of my friends and the digital projection they create of themselves. Nothing shows this more than a user’s profile pic. Women in seductive poses and men showing off their muscles is the dominant trend. However, there are many anomalies. One of the most absurd are the one or two people on my friend list who actually post profile pics of famous people they think they look like instead of themselves. I have been duped several times thinking, “Who is this glamorous person?” and almost deleting them only to find out upon examination that I actually do know who the person is, they simply neglected to put a real photo of themselves on their profile. Another aspect of Facebook that amazes me is the Info tab. This tab projects the likes and dislikes, political and religious views, dating status, and contact information of a person in a highly compressed fashion. For example, a common practice currently is to be a part of an odd, unknown political party such as The Republican Party of the Virgin Islands. What does this say about a person? That they are quirky? The bottom line is that it is possible to spend hours checking out the odd things people have to say about themselves. Though a digital projection can be a legitimate way of getting to know someone, is it really the most genuine? Or maybe it is even more genuine than meeting with them face to face. Getting to know my friends in this way always confuses me. An expectation is created on Facebook to continually be fun, upbeat, and witty. This description is not who I am. So, getting to know others by stalking them on Facebook may not be the best way to capture their true identity.
The internet has dramatically changed our relationships to each other and a large part of that is thanks to Facebook. Though Facebook seems like a fun harmless way to connect there are things to consider. Facebook isn’t the real world. The organic garden plant requests and fan pages should tell you this. Personal conversations may be best if they stay with close friends and out of the witty banter of mere acquaintances. In addition, Facebook is not a replacement for personal interaction. Browsing profiles may seem like it gives a true connection to the people you meet but browsing and stalking are very similar in the land of Facebook. Instead of leaving a comment why not ask that special friend out for coffee? Get to know them from their person rather than from their profile. In all, invest in your real relationships and use Facebook to enhance them, not create them.
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Maria R-B
