The media is popping out new things here and there, changing how we communicate with one another and how we live out basic daily duties. Facebook is a fairly new technology that has society connecting many of its routines and fundamentals. It also has a major way on how we interact together and how we form relationships. Compared to past forms of social media, Facebook allows you to connect with people from all around the world; those from your past and random acquaintances. It affects our social, work and romantic relationships. My presentation discussed examples in all these categories. While it has down falls, the expanding number of members shows the benefits are worth the risks.
Facebook has become some popular mainly due to the fact that is accesiable and convenient. It is also less taxing than direct communication. It allows being members to consume new content and stay in touch with new content being shared. It is very audience generated, allowing you to post and create whatever you would like for your page.
While Facebook is helpful in maintaining friendships, it also is a misrepresentation of our social network in that they most people only stay in contact with a small group of friends. So while Facebook keeps us connected to people from all over the world, in reality we only communicate with those we are already tightly connected to. But the point of this is that while not all friends are close, it does explain why things spread so quickly on Facebook. And while most people that you call your “friends” in reality they are most likely people you met randomly through out sometime in your like. So while your friendships with other members of Facebook might not be “personal,” they are “social” and keep you connected with one another. This can be important when dealing with the work field, because we can think of these friends as “alliances” that can lead to new opportunities. A quick introduction could lead to a friendship that could last years if one was willing to place time through communicating with them on Facebook. Businesses also use Facebook to survey members and develop new marketing patterns to gain more consumers’ attention. The last type of relationship that can be interpreted with in Facebook, is the romantic one. Most people have heard the saying, “It’s not official till it’s on Facebook” and with the video I showed, it proved that Facebook is important when developing a new romance. Studies have also show that Facebook can lead to more jealousy toward romantic partners, which in turns leads to even more time on Facebook. People are exposed to more information of their partners when involved on Facebook, leading to trust problems and other troubles.
Facebook has offered plenty of new advances in the way we interact with the world. It opens up all new doors and continues to change the way we network and communicate. I asked what students what they think Facebook will be like in two years and many of them expressed that they believe it will continue to grow and become more advanced, allowing for more business applications to be used. Some voiced that they do not believe that it will be extremely prominent in the business work-field and that email will be the main source of via communication. But the easiness and accessabiility of Facebook will obviously lead to many new advances in New Media and how relationships with others are form.
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As I stated during one of our lectures, I feel as though each of our "real" friendships and relationships are suffering a bit because of the new world Facebook has opened up. As a digital frontier, it is much easier for someone to talk to someone else across a state, country, and even oceans. However, this also means that people take these friendships for granted. I feel as though less and less people actually see each other, or go out to eat because they would much rather "chat" on the popular Facebook chat, or play "Farmville" and level up their character.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sergio. While I love facebook because it keeps me connected to family members and friends from out of state, there are several downfalls, including a much more shallow form of "friendship."
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned with the relationships being "facebook official," I have personally dealt with issues concerning the facebook "relationship status." Personally, most of my information is hidden for this very purpose. In my opinion, my private/personal life should be kept private and personal. On more than one occassion, I have been asked why I have my relationship status hidden, most of the time by acquaintances as opposed to good friends. Facebook is becoming dangerous as far as privacy goes because people almost feel like they are entitled to that information. It is almost as if the idea of being facebook "friends" gives them an automatic right to personal information, which says a lot about our generation's mindset towards privacy.