Social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, have become very popular among young people in the past few years. These sites allow one to communicate with people all over the world, but this use of communication does not include face-to-face interaction. This new type of communication has become “the new way of socializing in the networked world (Kornblum 160).” People are able to socialize and make new friends via these social networking sites, which is very different from the past. In the past, friendship was “played out in school hallways, on playgrounds, and in late-night phone calls,” instead of through emails. Since there are so many people on these Internet sites, one can accumulate many different friends, but can they really be called friends? Most of the friend lists include best friends as well as virtual stra
ngers and serve as an indication of social success or failure. Not only do these sites promote fake friendships, but they also produce a loss of face-to-face interaction that could be harmful to these young people’s social skills. Without practice in verbal communication, then these skills could become underdeveloped in many teenagers, but this could just be a temporary phase that these people of generation z will grow out of. As Janet Kornblum, a reporter for USA Today, writes, “Every generation finds its excess for people to meet people. This is just this generation’s thing. It will die back a little bit (Kornblum 164).” For now though, these teens are developing bad social skills that could leave a lasting effect.Source:
Kornblum, Janet. “Meet My 5,000 New Best Pals”. Text Messaging: Reading and Writing about Popular Culture. John Alberti. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2009. 159-164. Print.
Is this all really new or just a dramatic step in the social world? Is it even dramatic? What about those friends lists and this idea of the virtual stranger as a friend, is that new?
ReplyDeleteI went to a small high school and wasn't a very social person. Nonetheless I can remember my friends and then several people I went to school with that, while we didn't hang out or talk much, we still knew each other and got along; maybe shared stories or jokes in school or had lunch together, who knows. If I had a Myspace page then, I imagine those people would have been on it (and still I suppose) but they weren't really what I call friends. Thinking that way I can see how easy it might be for a kid living here in Boise (with its many larger schools) to run across hundreds of other students on those websites the same way I met people in school. We just haven't kept track of every person we've met and got along with.
Maybe it should just be an "acquaintance list".
I agree that an "acquaintance list" would better describe the list of "friends" on MySpace, and I also see your point about having acquaintances in real life too and the similarities between this people and those found on the web, but I also think that because there is a level of in-person reaction with these acquaintances met in school that is not achievable with those found on the web. There are opportunities for interpersonal communication with those people met in the real life that isn't possible with those met on MySpace.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ashley. The level of friendship really just depends on the amount of time you put into it. However, i think there is a little bit of a risk in non face-to-face friendships because it's harder to "read" the non-verbal cues that communicate so much.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your valuable information. well ! Social network site is an online platform that focuses on facilitating the building of social networks among people who want to share interests, activities with each other. Azdes.co an online service that allows anyone to create and manage their social community with your friends and family.
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