Oh, the power of facebook!
A poke isn't returned. Oh no, we have major problems! I'm going to sulk and be angry for a long time! Or I'm going to accuse you of not poking me and demand an explanation! Wtf, mate!
A listing is removed. We can't be friends! You took me off FACEBOOK! Oh, woe! Goodbye!
I don't get it. Just over a year ago, facebook didn't even exist for Bowling Green, and not long before then it hadn't been around for other schools, either.
So why, how, has it become so powerful? You hear people talking about how friendships were broken, how fights were started, how people became angry at each other over things that happened over facebook, something that hadn't even been part of anyone's life not that long ago. True, great things have happened over it--people have met and become friends, common interests are found, clubs are started, one might not feel so obsolete. However, this particular post wonders about what happens when people depend on facebook lest their social world crumble.
Somehow, people become very touchy about their friends list. Where it be over blockages on AIM or MSN, myspace, online forums, chat rooms, other online communities, or facebook, there are several ways people can perceive themselves to be slighted over the internet. In fact, some of the most subtle and major messages between people, particularly the younger generation who grew up taking relationships such as friendship online for granted, are happening so indirectly that I think it's removing a part of our humanity. We've become so dependent on indirect sources for maintaining our relationships that we don't think twice about taking offense to a slight that was made either on purpose or in error. And chances are they'll assume what they want about what happened and never try to discuss what went wrong. It happened on FACEBOOK, how on earth could it mean anything but hate and broken friendships and "OMG, I can't talk to him/her ever again, I'm so insulted!"?
I've come to question my own dependence on the Internet for social interactions. I know people on my college campus who live five minutes' walk away, yet I only see them very rarely online and nearly never face-to-face. I've started talking to friends I've only known through messenger on the phone; somehow, there's something about seeing a face and hearing a voice that's missing from the medium of a screen and the absence of tone and expression.
People see too much in being on somebody's list. If you're not on somebody's list, if you can't see your name under the title "[This Person]'s Friends," there must be something utterly and terribly wrong. If you aren't given a virtual poke, if a message isn't returned, if some slight possibly happened, it will fire the paranoia of people who would rather take offense and fire insults and accusations back over the Internet rather than go face-to-face and be wrong. If you've been taken off somebody's list, there's nothing more to it--it means itself, so don't go looking for any other reason.
It's gotten to the point where if I'm having problems with someone, I'm not going to fight an anonymous, faceless, expressionless duel through a piece of plastic where all I see is my own interpretation of words sent to me and my own words reflected back. From my experience, this only leads to more problems, incorrect personal assumptions on both sides, and the power of FACEBOOK strikes again as two people won't so much as look at each other because of misconstrued messages and for not receiving someting so insignificant as a virtual poke. In ten years' time, facebook might even be obsolete, and what will all this drama have come to? Scars that could have been avoided had people not jumped to conclusions and revolved their life around an online world of things so small as pokes and messages that might not have even gone through.
What are we coming to when we set such great status through virtual pokes? When we're willing to give up something that could have been great because our names aren't under somebody's list online. We don't stop to think, "Well, maybe there's something more to it." No, we have to assume that the list is everything, that relations over FACEBOOK rule the lives off facebook even when the very idea of facebook didn't exist so much as two years ago in most people's minds. I sometimes wonder what would happened if facebook just disappeared one day. If something happened and it was deleted forever. What sort of chaos would ensue?
I'm making a point. If the friendship is that important to a person online so that it overrules all else that's not FACEBOOK, perhaps it's not worth anything more than facebook. What's the worth of facebook when it's all there is?
Just the beginning of a thought.
A poke isn't returned. Oh no, we have major problems! I'm going to sulk and be angry for a long time! Or I'm going to accuse you of not poking me and demand an explanation! Wtf, mate!
A listing is removed. We can't be friends! You took me off FACEBOOK! Oh, woe! Goodbye!
I don't get it. Just over a year ago, facebook didn't even exist for Bowling Green, and not long before then it hadn't been around for other schools, either.
So why, how, has it become so powerful? You hear people talking about how friendships were broken, how fights were started, how people became angry at each other over things that happened over facebook, something that hadn't even been part of anyone's life not that long ago. True, great things have happened over it--people have met and become friends, common interests are found, clubs are started, one might not feel so obsolete. However, this particular post wonders about what happens when people depend on facebook lest their social world crumble.
Somehow, people become very touchy about their friends list. Where it be over blockages on AIM or MSN, myspace, online forums, chat rooms, other online communities, or facebook, there are several ways people can perceive themselves to be slighted over the internet. In fact, some of the most subtle and major messages between people, particularly the younger generation who grew up taking relationships such as friendship online for granted, are happening so indirectly that I think it's removing a part of our humanity. We've become so dependent on indirect sources for maintaining our relationships that we don't think twice about taking offense to a slight that was made either on purpose or in error. And chances are they'll assume what they want about what happened and never try to discuss what went wrong. It happened on FACEBOOK, how on earth could it mean anything but hate and broken friendships and "OMG, I can't talk to him/her ever again, I'm so insulted!"?
I've come to question my own dependence on the Internet for social interactions. I know people on my college campus who live five minutes' walk away, yet I only see them very rarely online and nearly never face-to-face. I've started talking to friends I've only known through messenger on the phone; somehow, there's something about seeing a face and hearing a voice that's missing from the medium of a screen and the absence of tone and expression.
People see too much in being on somebody's list. If you're not on somebody's list, if you can't see your name under the title "[This Person]'s Friends," there must be something utterly and terribly wrong. If you aren't given a virtual poke, if a message isn't returned, if some slight possibly happened, it will fire the paranoia of people who would rather take offense and fire insults and accusations back over the Internet rather than go face-to-face and be wrong. If you've been taken off somebody's list, there's nothing more to it--it means itself, so don't go looking for any other reason.
It's gotten to the point where if I'm having problems with someone, I'm not going to fight an anonymous, faceless, expressionless duel through a piece of plastic where all I see is my own interpretation of words sent to me and my own words reflected back. From my experience, this only leads to more problems, incorrect personal assumptions on both sides, and the power of FACEBOOK strikes again as two people won't so much as look at each other because of misconstrued messages and for not receiving someting so insignificant as a virtual poke. In ten years' time, facebook might even be obsolete, and what will all this drama have come to? Scars that could have been avoided had people not jumped to conclusions and revolved their life around an online world of things so small as pokes and messages that might not have even gone through.
What are we coming to when we set such great status through virtual pokes? When we're willing to give up something that could have been great because our names aren't under somebody's list online. We don't stop to think, "Well, maybe there's something more to it." No, we have to assume that the list is everything, that relations over FACEBOOK rule the lives off facebook even when the very idea of facebook didn't exist so much as two years ago in most people's minds. I sometimes wonder what would happened if facebook just disappeared one day. If something happened and it was deleted forever. What sort of chaos would ensue?
I'm making a point. If the friendship is that important to a person online so that it overrules all else that's not FACEBOOK, perhaps it's not worth anything more than facebook. What's the worth of facebook when it's all there is?
Just the beginning of a thought.
