Social Networking

I thought the discussion about Facebook was very interesting. I used to have a Facebook account which I was devoted to, but deleted it because I began to have a privacy complex and felt people would always know what I'm up to.

A few issues were brought up in class regarding social networking. First, I feel profiles set a certain image about a person that may or may not be true. This can happen in two ways. Either someone would, for whatever reason, give false information about themselves, or people develop a certain impression about an individual based on his or her photos, wall posts, or number of friends. For example, like we discussed in class, if you have 1000 pictures in comparison to someone with 7 people will probably come to the conclusion that you are more popular. Second, meeting new people online is different than meeting someone in person. A lot of students, for instance, meet their roommates through Facebook and although you get along online doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be the same when you actually meet them.

I think that although it is a good way to contact people, we have become so dependant on it for that reason that we no longer care for one on one interaction. Also, the more we use Facebook, and other social network, the more we start to believe that a profile defines a person and could pretty much tell you what their like and that is not always the case. I believe social networking may be useful but I really hope it is not going to dominant our social lives. As a reformed Facebook junkie I urge you to step away from the computer!