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| The picture explains itself. |
As the illustration above shows, there is no ignoring the
impact that Facebook has on today’s society. Zuckerburg is now a billionaire
while we, the average citizen, continue to help him rake in the cash by
visiting the site multiple times a day. In order to investigate the magnitude
of Facebook’s impact, I will examine my personal use of it in my life up to
this point. By looking at my addiction to Facebook, I will be able to
understand how it “informs and even structures my identity.”
Because of
security reasons, my mother wouldn’t let me get a Facebook account until I was
in high school. Even then, I did not know what I was getting myself into. Not a
day went by my freshmen year when I wasn’t checking my “wall” and “messages”
for any news/updates. Whether it was in hope of gaining popularity, or meeting
some classy high school freshmen girls, I simply needed to check it every day.
At one point my weekends became successful only if I had no less than five
friend requests.
It’s pathetic that my
goal was to gain cyber friends now that our class has actually sat down and
contemplated the concept of a social identity. When checking my friend requests
I usually spend about 4 seconds deciding whether I will accept or ignore my
request. I am assuming that most people are similar to me, which is why I now
feel stupid for putting so much of my time into a request that the other person
would simply accept regardless of whether they wanted to be friends with me or
not. This is because it’s not really being a friend, it’s simply a mutual
agreement to let other people know that you acknowledge your new “friend” and
will allow him or her to view your pictures and status’. The fact that the word
friend has developed into this meaning is shocking. “Friending
“sustains an illusion of closeness in a complex world of continuous partial
attention,” said Roger Fransecky, a clinical psychologist and executive coach
in New York (2,894 friends). “We get captured by Facebook’s algorithms. Every
day 25 new people can march into your living room. I come from a failed
Presbyterian youth, and there was a part of me that first thought it was
impolite not to respond. Then I realized I couldn’t put them all in a living
room — I needed an amphitheater.”’ Fransecky points out that the definition of
a “friend” has changed to where we think just because someone has accepted to
be our Facebook friend means that we actually know them.
Just because
Facebook has changed the definition of a friend does not mean it is being
destructive. There are countless reasons why Facebook is a very useful tool in
everyday life. Since college has started, it has allowed me to belong to
groups, clubs, and numerous other activities that I would have been unaware of
had the social website not existed. I joined the Kappa Alpha order and most of
our communication comes from the home page of the fraternity. Because of the
accessibility of information on Facebook, we need to realize the benefits that
it has brought with its skyrocketing popularity. Although the plethora of
information is nice to have at the push of a button, our attachment to it can
sometimes remain subliminal. We have Facebook on our computers, phones,
tablets, which leave anything we want to know only a click away. Some may say
that this could have a negative impact on society as a whole because it could
lead to dependence on technology or lethargic behavior. As long as we become aware of the presence
that Facebook and other social media websites have on us, then we can use it to
our advantage. There is no reason to not use Facebook as a tool to stay in
contact with people, to make plans, or to join organizations. It is simply our
responsibility to make sure it is used in that manner, and not obsessively.
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