You tube has been such a big phenomenon in the 20th century crowd. All these online sources started to emerge when young hipsters started looking for an easy way to communicate. I have never been a fan. Others seem to check their "facebook" or email everyday. this mind boggles me. I check my email maybe once a month same with my face book. If shit is important people will take the time to get a hold of you. For example on my wall (which I checked 3 days ago) I had happy birthday wishes
bday was on the 3rd) from 42 people. Do you know how many calls I got? about 15 but they were from the people who matter most to me and me to them. When someone I like is having their birthday I phone sing happy birthday and most of the time make a card. I think I even do that for people I am not even close with to make them feel special. So thanks but no thanks if u wanna wish me a happy bday call me, dont waste space on my facebook wall wishing me the best. that doesn't even count as being thoughtful to me...basically when it comes down to it. that makes letters all that much more meaningful. when someone gives you a letter you know that shizz is serious stuff. oh dam facebook to hell. I hate social networking. So IF YOUR ON FACEBOOK ALL THE TIME. TAKE A DAY OFF BE A HUMAN AND TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS IN REAL LIFE......WHAT A CONCEPT HUH?
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2 comments:
hey Katie! Wicked post... I'm crafting my eloquent response right now!
Hi Katie
First of all I want to agree with most of what you are saying. Social networking and the internet is getting out of control, and may even be making us antisocial. I understand what you mean when you say it frustrates you to have everyone wish you a happy birthday through Facebook or by email instead of in person, but I also think that condemning Facebook for giving people the ability to do this might be not the best way to think about the issue. Facebook was designed to facilitate the flow of information between people, and its really pretty good at it! With over 50 million people available on Facebook, its obviously making it easier for people to communicate with each other, otherwise why have it at all! While I’m with you on the lack of a personal touch with Facebook, I think it’s more the people who choose to exclusively communicate via this medium that are the problem! A recent study I found in “CyberPsychology and Behaviour” said that 80% of college students use at least one social networking site, and 50% of the sample logged into that site every single day! That’s crazy eh? But it kind of explains why everyone sent you “Happy Birthdays” over Facebook, they’re already there!
The idea of communication becoming less personal has, in my opinion, been a social problem for many years now. It seems that every tool we use to make contacting each other more efficient is met with a lack of personality. I’d wager ever the telephone had it’s critics, but is this debate simply stonewalling the success of a globalized communication system, or are our intimate relationships truly at risk?
I’m not sure if people in this day and age are just rude in general, but I think it used to be common courtesy to ask if you were going to make pictures of somebody available to the entire world, especially, if like Facebook, they are on a network that does not allow people other then the poster to remove them. I mean, there is the “untag” feature, but so what! You’re still in the photo! I think even more of an issue regarding social networking is the protection of one’s privacy on the world wide web. The study I found also showed that 20% of Facebook users would be uncomfortable with a current or future perspective employer viewing currently available details of them on Facebook! This is information that is already there, that they or their friends have posted! Not only does that make Facebook a method for impersonal communication, it makes it a vessel for information that we never wanted certain people to have! Before Facebook, if I had given your boss a photo of you totally wasted and partying, you would be upset! But if I make available photos of you by adding them to one of my photo albums, there’s supposedly nothing wrong with that, I mean everyone does it! What’s going on here? Are people simply avoiding the rules of privacy these days, or is Facebook merely making it easier for our friends to interact with us through photos of our experiences, and we just don’t think about the implications of others seeing them until it’s too late?
As to the digital picture frames, it seems to me that “progress” in photography is being defined these days in much the same was a progress with regards to communication via social networking: making things more efficient and easy. Actually, I think there is a direct link to the Facebook phenomenon of uploading photos (and clicking through a thousand a second) and digital picture frames. We as a population are getting more and more use to looking at something for only a split second before the image changes. We want more information and increased ability to get at it. The idea of a digital picture frame is, I’m sure, very appealing to many people, but not to me. In my opinion, sitting down and flipping through an old photo album is as much a part of being a family as eating dinner together, which I notice not many people are doing very often either. Between Facebook and the invention of this digital picture frame thing, who knows how much longer traditional family values can last? With no clear rules for how a technology like Facebook should be used, and no way of knowing who will be offended by what we do there until its too late, what are we supposed to do about the whole thing? It’s hard to say, but for the meantime I for one am going to try and make an effort to make the intimacy of my relationships last by avoiding overuse of social networking.. Who needs a million Facebook friends when I can have 10 real ones eh?
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