Social Networking
Social Networking
Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have redefined interpersonal communication and relationships in ways that are both positive and negative. Facebook for instance has definitely revolutionized the way people communicate online. With millions of members, it has been instrumental in helping people communicate and connect online both informally and professionally. However, personal experience proves that too much enthusiasm in Facebook has become a serious impediment in creating and maintaining meaningful relationships in our lives.
In her article “Opinions: Naughty or Nice You’d Better Watch Out,” Melissa Mapes describes how social networking sites like Facebook have stolen the human aspect in communication (Mapes). One only needs to take a trip back in time to the not-so-old days when genuine socializing involved face-to-face contact, human touch and gestures. Communication back then went deeper than you can ever get from a keyboard and a screen. The friends we connected to and established relationships with were human beings we could genuinely talk to, count on, and occasionally have a sincerely natural fight with.
Today we gather hundreds of ghost Facebook friends by a simple act of clicking “request” or “confirm” buttons. These cyber “friends” are not people you can count on times of need. They only give us a false sense of support that is actually never there. It is normally hard enough to gauge a person during a face to face meeting but undeniably impossible to tell the character of a stranger whose identity is simply what he or she claims it to be on a Facebook profile page.
There have been many instances where Facebook addicts have shifted their alliances from real life communities of human beings to online communities. I have seen a close friend’s romantic relationship being ruined by negative comments about her profile picture which were posted by online friends. It was a pity that the boyfriend valued the opinions of virtual friends more than the genuine affection and love his girlfriend had for him. When we start replacing friends we can physically relate to with online communities, we are creating a social problem and losing our social skills (Haythornthwaite 127).
The more we communicate through Facebook the further we drift apart from those who are close to us. Our interpersonal relationships are bound to suffer as a result. If you stopped calling your siblings and simply sent messages instead, you would be replacing genuine conversations with online messaging and losing the human aspect of communication in the process. Photographs and online chatting are not substitutes for close personal communication.
Just like genuine friendship is based on trust so is true animosity based on mistrust and betrayal. A significant percentage of Facebook relationships and wars are based on neither trust nor mistrust but on deception and misconceptions. Any honest Facebook enthusiast will readily admit that Facebook communication is usually enlivened by a rumor mill that, in most cases, originates from profile faces we hardly know. We can very easily deceive others on Facebook just like they can deceive us. It is rarely possible to tell if the person you are chatting with is a 19 year old friend or a 50 year old ex-convict luring you into a trap. Anyone can create a fake account on Facebook using a false name and upload false photographs. You can not completely trust the identities of the friends on Facebook, much less the rumors they manufacture.
Managing a Facebook friends list can also be a strain in your relationship with true friends and associates. The friends list is usually made of family, schoolmates, colleagues, and friends you have acquired in the course of life. There are also those other strangers who happen to be friends of the members of your friends list, and the friends of these strangers. It is therefore not very unimaginable for a rival, or an enemy, of one of your genuine close friend to appear in your friends list. Such a scenario would cause a strain in your relationship with someone close to you and result in a loss of trust or genuine friendship altogether.
Lastly, the Facebook environment allows a free flowing exchange of information that can be abused to target the weaknesses of users for the sole purpose of causing them an emotional depression (Findlay). Students have been known to use Facebook to bully others especially those in lower years or even to get back on each other. Such activities negatively affect social relationships, emotional health, and academic performance.
Works Cited
Findlay, Lorna. Facebook Disadvantages. 01 March 2010. 23 Aug. 2010.<http://ezinearticles.com/?Facebook-Disadvantages&id=2051499>
Haythornthwaite, C. “Social networks and Internet connectivity effects.” Information,Communication, & Society. 8.2 (2005): 125-147.
Mapes, Melissa. “Opinions: Naughty or Nice You’d Better Watch Out,” The State Press,Arizona State University, February 28, 2008
