Today in class we discussed facebook, and its affects on educations, relationships, and identity. I think facebook can be a positive thing in people's lives, but it can also be negative for relationships. It's positive in way that it can (how we discussed in class) let a person be whoever they want if their not happy with their identity in the "real world." I think that is good for a person to be able to find somewhere that they feel they fit in, even if it is just online.
Going along with my theme, I think facebook can hurt interpersonal relationships. But only in certain cases. I think it can also help interpersonal relationships flourish. It keeps relationships alive that have long distances between them. For example, I have several very good friends that attend college in other states, and I can communicate with them very easily via facebook. If it weren't for facebook we wouldn't communicate very much because talking on the phone takes more time and effort. You have to set aside at least an hour to catch up with someone via phone. Facebook is definitely good for keeping in touch with old friends. But it can hurt our interpersonal relationships, especially romantic ones.
There is an article on ksl.com that I read about how facebook can hurt interpersonal relationships. It discussed how spouses with facebook can see "flirty" chat with their online friends as harmless, but that has caused big problems in marriage. I think facebook can hurt relationships in that way. I also think that if you try to have a romantic relationship over facebook, that is hurting interpersonal communication. You don't see the person, or hear their voice, and feelings can be interpreted wrong.
Facebook can also be dangerous if you want to keep a part of your identity private. If you put pictures of you partying on facebook, co-workers and employers could find them and get you into trouble. My brother in law works for a finance company in San Fransisco and he was in charge of hiring the interns. He told me one of the first things he did was go look on their facebook to get a feel of what they were like. What you put on your profile can really effect you in the "real world." I also read an article on ksl.com about a student in a town near Milwaukee who made a profile as a girl, and convinced some of his male classmates to send him naked pictures, then black mailed them for doing sex acts on the internet. People really begin to trust their online friends because they think they know them, but they could be someone completely different than who they say they are, and you would never know. Facebook can be beneficial, or hamful, it depends on how you use it.
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Interesting article - can you include the link? Also, how do our readings relate to what you are talking about. You may want to include Bugeja or Ellison to make this argument more robust.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that facebook is a double edged-sword. Facebook can help number one your relationships with people, but at the same time can hurt them. Now-a-days if your in a relationship it better be facebook official or else no one knows or it doesn't make anyone else aware enough to care. That article you were talking about sounds interesting but I agree that it would be problematic not only for relationships but also for marriages. Your privacy is affected by facebook, when we had our tech talk with the rest of the group facebook is a big thing that has to deal with netiquette. Your etiquette as a person can be spread through the web and people have access to all of it. I'm sure that some people might face this when getting out of college and getting into a good job or even graduate school. I agreed with Bujega's article because I think that emotion and body language is a big part of communication, you can not get anything out of words read on a computer, and even so with the creation of emoticon's it doesn't really mean as much as a face to face conversation. One of the members of my house has a girlfriend in Texas and they use Skype to talk and see each other over the internet and I agree that its better than just talking on the phone and instant messaging or chatting online through typing because you can read the reaction on someone's face rather than wondering how they reacted to something you typed on a message forum.
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