Thursday 23 September 2010

Antisocial networking

Facebook has made social life into a display, a competition, it deepens insecurities and undermines humility, it is not social networking but creating identity nervousness and pressure. It removes complexities of life by forcing people to define themselves, it increases the struggle for uniqueness as people constantly try to define themselves in relation to others, it makes friendship into a relation of exchange, where communication is the end, not the beginning.

1 comment:

Elly Veness said...

Katie, have come across your blog and couldn't agree more. At the moment I'm in a new period of my life whereby I'm constantly in situations that bring new people, faces, ideas...and insecurities. At the moment I have just started a new job and two and a half weeks in already I can't help but feel a bit insecure as to 'who will add me on facebook' or not, as pathetic as it might seem. Don't know about you, but I always see my profile as a means of self-expression and of course communication with the outside world - and in that sense I like it - but reading your words I couldn't agree more: Has 'facebook friendship' justified a real connection or bond made? Can you really tell anything about someone from their facebook profile? Usually not. Liked your point about facebook typically signifying 'an end and not a beginning', and in most cases I agree with you (before deleting en masse I never communicated with many of my 'facebook friends', and the same rings true for most), but don't agree with you in every sense; in a lot of ways it does justify its means as a useful communication tool - I would not be in contact with some of my cousins and relatives on other sides of the world if it weren't for facebook.

Aside from all of that, it was good to see you the other week, good luck with MA application!

xxx