Facebook has revolutionized communication in a radical and irreversible way. We are more interconnected to each other as a race now than at any other time in human history. Anyone with an internet connection and a Facebook profile can instantly share pictures, videos, and posts with their friends, family and peers. It has permanently altered humans’ relations to the internet as well as with each other through the creation of a feasible online presence, instant communication and engaging stimulation.
The internet has turned into the foremost method of communication for an overwhelming majority of the world’s population. Facebook using the internet as its primary platform has important implications. Firstly, it enables instant exchange of information and events, many times almost as soon as they occur. The uprisings and dissent in the Middle East can be used as a primary example for this claim. Protestors in many of the Middle Easter countries affected such as Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain used social media such as Facebook and Twitter to document every phase of the revolution. Facebook was also used by protest groups to garner support, distribute information and inform its members of various developments. The “live” aspect of Facebook is a primary magnet for attracting users in the first place. The Newsfeed feature attempts to capture events as they happen and allow users a kind of special privy or access to events.
The creation of the internet arose from humans’ needs for better communication. The advent of social media tools such as Facebook has made us accustomed to gaining information in this instantaneous fashion; it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to revert to previous modes of information sharing such as mailing letters. Facebook has permanently altered our expectations for gaining information with regards to content and speed. We demand various types of media such as photos, videos, and blog posts as well as live, immediate postings of them. This is in sharp contrast to thirty years ago when primary communication between humans was letters, telephone calls and face-to-face interaction. We have gradually replaced the more immediate forms of communication such as direct interaction with a secondary representation of ourselves such as a Facebook profile.
One of the most important aspects of a Facebook profile is the profile picture. It can be treated as an identification marker that declares to your online community your appearance and all the attributes that come along with it. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. People’s choice of photos they post for the world to see can be very telling of their personalities. Facebook allows direct manipulation of the way others perceive a person. Having a continuous online presence in others’ social networks has drastically altered the way we relate to one another. People can be very deliberate in the creation of their profiles and what they post etc. in order to convey and promote a certain sense of self to others. This component of interpersonal relations was always present in other forms of communication, such as e-mail, mailing letters and even face-to-face interactions, where the color of one’s dress can influence the second party. However, Facebook allows multi-modal avenues for manipulation of others’ perceptions. A user is being judged based on his pictures, status updates, number of friends, links posted etc. Having so many avenues for judgment creates a severe self-awareness and deliberateness to one’s actions and what one chooses to reveal about oneself.
Our modes of communication have obviously been drastically altered by technological advances. The telephone which seemed simple enough--hear the sound of another person via cables and respond—has evolved into a multi-billion worldwide industry incorporating a myriad of features that could have never been imagined decades ago. It is still used primarily as a communication tool but has also accommodated various other functions such as GPS, language translators, and most importantly the internet. Having the internet in the palm of one’s hand drastically alters human actions and ways of life. Research has shown that the internet is playing increasingly more predominant roles in decision making. People choose to spend most of their waking hours online or using some sort of communication device. Wireless internet drastically altered human communication because it offered more ways for people to stay connected. The addition of Facebook exponentially increased people’s chances of staying in touch at an almost perpetual level. Now people can take pictures of objects and occurrences in their daily lives and share them immediately. This allows more access to people’s lives as well as a heightened level of self-disclosure that was previously unheard of. It has become normal to disclose one’s innermost thoughts and occurrences in one’s daily life to a large, semi-public audience.
Facebook has lived up to its claims of connecting people. After all, we are instantly connected to our peers after we add them as friends and are privy to information that would have previously been locked away unless teased out through many conversations. Displaying one’s information in a resume-like format such as Facebook instantly informs others of your life in a way that was previously unheard of. Chat rooms could have allowed users to communicate this information to others through conversations but Facebook doesn’t even require a conversation in order to reveal this information. We are walking billboards in the world of Facebook. Acquaintances may recognize us not based on meaningful conversations shared but from our profile picture or a funny comment on Facebook. The ways people relate to each other are changing. We have more access to each other’s’ information while ironically being more isolated from society.
“Pictures or it didn’t happen” can accurately sum up the Facebook generation’s view on social events. Facebook itself is a continuous social event, a live “party” of sorts as it involves many people and various multimodal interactions. It has become ubiquitous to witness other people’s social interactions on Facebook. This is a special privilege in a sense as social events are usually constricted to a certain social class or group. Therefore in a way, Facebook is overcoming social barriers by allowing “outcasts” to partake in the social experience of certain groups. This might not have been the intent of the creators of Facebook but it is an effect that can be observed nonetheless. A similar effect can be observed in the viewing of a user’s “Wall”. The Wall is a presentation of a user’s interactions between him and his friends. Public display of one’s conversations allows access of normally private information to a larger audience. Even if Person C is not friends with Person B, they can still see their interactions with common friend Person A. We have become so accustomed to this type of public and common sharing of information that did not exist decades ago. Our sense of individual privacy has definitely lessened as we are less wary of other people knowing our personal information. This can be contrasted to the 1990s when internet usage started increasing; people trusted each other significantly less then than they do now. Now it is normal to share one’s birthdate, favorite movies etc. with acquaintances or people one has only met once. It is possible that Facebook is creating lowered inhibitions with regards to self-disclosure.
References
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