Facebook…friend or foe?

I avoided Facebook for years. The stories I heard about this forum of connection all had themes of hostility. Sara wouldn’t accept Zach, her ex-boyfriend, as her friend and now he’s upset. Liz said something about Zach on Trevor’s Facebook and now Sara thinks Liz likes Zach and made a snide comment on…..You get the idea. Facebook also seemed to be a way to collect lots of “friends” and appear very popular, while not actually being friends with anyone. However, after much pressure from cousins, my sister, and some of my friends in other states, I gave in and made a Facebook.

Immediately, I realized I did not know how to act on Facebook. A whole new set of etiquette rules applied in this realm and I did not know a single one. For instance, how often did you have to send messages to someone? Was it required that you comment on their pictures? How often should you post pictures? Should you immediately befriend everyone you can think of so you are not considered rude? What happens if someone asks to be your friend but you don’t want to be theirs? Should you accept them as friends? I fiddled around with it, found some friends and started researching. (As a young college student, 21, most of my friend are of the same age and therefore my research is only that of other 21ish college students. I recognize there could be other experiences on Facebook, I just haven’t experience them.) Here is what I found so far.

1. It is important to mass a friend base the size of a small town.

2. Equally important to post pictures of the parties held at your apartment, local bar, other people’s apartments ect. Should be noticeably drunk.

3. Anytime you and your girlfriends get together looking particularly done up, take picture to show everyone not only how hot you are, but how hot the people you hang out with are.

4. If you are dating someone, important that your Profile Picture contain the two of you. If you are a man, this is not as important.

Facebook helps us act the popular girl in high school. With Facebook we are all popular, well loved, with an impossible amount of friends. The selectivity of Facebook allows one to post and show only the coolest, most fun side of themselves. You would never know that my cousin Aimee really enjoys having pajama and movie night with her roommates while all have on no makeup, and their ugly pajamas. In accordance with her Facebook, Aimee is always fun, always on the go, always looking her best and always surrounded by a gaggle of long legged girls in satin halter tops. But this is just not the case. Much like models are airbrushed to be featured in magazines, Facebook allows us to “airbrush” our personalities. The result: a superficial view of our friends, ourselves and the world around us. Instead of admitting and accepting that we sometimes would rather read a book and go to bed early, we show only the most out-going energetic side of ourselves in a crazed attempt to out-do one another. In this environment, Facebook becomes not a way to keep us connected, but another medium in which to compete; who has the most friends, a boyfriend, the most parties to attend, the prettiest picture, the hottest girlfriend, the hottest friends in general. What, then is to be gained by all this?

Potentially, a lot of harm could come to someone on Facebook. Facebook’s combination of its bulletin board like “wall,” where your friends can post messages to you that all your other friends can see, virtual photo album, email-like messaging system and capacity for internet relay chat give users a plethora of tools in which they can connect. While this can be fun and convenient, it also gives those whose purpose is harmful that many more portals in which to do harm. Someone could easily change their name, post a picture of some one else as themselves, and gather a group of friends by claiming to be affiliated with a university or other organization. This person could become good “friends” with someone, by sending them messages, talking to them in real time, and sharing photos. Wood and Smith, authors of Online Communication, tell of a psychologist who pretended to be a woman named Julie online in a bulletin board like forum. When the women found who frequented this bulletin board found out Julie’s true identity, they were outraged. They became close to Julie only through text. Imagine, then, if you had text, images and real time conversations with someone, wouldn’t you be even more likely to believe you know the real them? Agreeing to meet the person could potentially be dangerous.

There are perks to Facebook as well. I have recently come into contact with someone I haven’t spoken to years and had no other way of getting in touch with them. It can, if used right, really help you stay connected with your friends and maintain close deep relationships. Like anything, Facebook is good in moderation and good if used correctly. I won’t ever have 723 friends, and I don’t want to. I ignored a friend request from someone I hardly knew and I don’t even feel rude about it. As with other forms of online communication, I would much rather talk to and be with these people in real life, but this is not always an option. Facebook lets us, even if it’s only an illusion, believe we have stayed connected to all those we wished to stay connected with.

Advertisement