In order to write about social media
and my identity I have put through it, it is important to understand what
social media means. One thing is that compared to the tradition word “media”
social media is not really media. In reality social media is more of a
communication place, a place for interacting with other people and a platform
of networking. While the media how it used to be referred as such as
television, radio, and print were designed to deliver ads as long as using
relevant content with those ads. So they vital difference here is that social
media is a place for communicating and relationships not a place for ads.
Now with
this in mind I want to bring up the movie “The Social Network”. It is a movie
about how Facebook came to be. I personally really like the movie and would
suggest it to anyone who is curious about it, but in the movie one of the big
conflicts was based around the fact of money. Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of
Facebook) and his friends were having constant arguments on when to allow ads
onto there website. Now Mark’s friends put the money in from Mark to make the
website so it was obvious why they wanted to put ads on right away so they were
able to get there money back. Mark on the other hand wanted to wait so people
could understand that his website was made for people to keep in social
connection with each other, and he didn’t want people to think that it was
about making money. So back to the point I made in the paragraph above, what we
call social media now was made for communication not as a source of media.
People through time has changed that from “social network” and got it confused
with “social media”
There are
many types of social networking out there and I personally don’t care about any
of them. I did have a MySpace and I do have a Facebook. Did I want either of
them? No. In middle school when people started to get MySpace accounts I never
wanted one, but it became soon obvious that if you didn’t have a MySpace that
means you were out of the groups. In order to not feel left out I was forced to
make a MySpace then going into high school when Facebook became much more
popular I tried again just not to get into it. I stopped getting on MySpace and
I said I wasn’t making a Facebook. As time went on this proved to be a harder
and harder task as more people communicated through Facebook I was left out of
several things. Then even the school started to use Facebook and Twitter to
communicate with students and say important things like upcoming events and
homework. So eventually the inevitable happened.
I had to just on the bandwagon and get a Facebook.
The reason I
dislike Facebook is because I feel like it is fake. Because as time goes on
people try to get as many “friends as possible” and this can lead to a fake
life. The point of this paper is to talk about our Digital Identities. Since
you make this digital identity you can make it the way you want yourself to be.
By taking out parts you may personally not like. Now the majority of people
most likely do not even realizing they are doing this. But it is almost
impossible to avoid. You are spreading your ideal you, which some people might
not view as bad, but I think it is a terrible thing because to fully understand
and know someone you have to know the little things about them. Like the facial
expressions they make, how they say certain things, and several other things.
All those type of things are taken away when you talk to someone in the
Facebook world.
Facebook
also takes away some vital communication skills. Through communication on
Facebook you have all the time in the world to think on the spot, this takes
away from being able to have a back to forth conversation with someone. You are
not able to physically see how what you say effects people when you type it down
on Facebook, this can lead to someone saying mean things to people and hurting
them without even trying to and not meaning to at all.
My Digital
life is actually pretty difficult to say exactly, because of how much I don’t
like it. I looked at my timeline to see my activity and this I thought this
really proves how little I do on Facebook, besides just check to see what is
going on. Since April I have made 1 status changed, and that is it. Everything
else has been me replying to other people’s messages or replying on comments
that I was involved in. I have owned a Facebook for over 5 years and I have
never uploaded a picture to Facebook. Every picture I have used has been from
me getting tagged from pictures other people have uploaded. I change my profile
picture around 2 to 3 times a year and the only reason I do that is so people
think
I was actually planning on deleting my Facebook account once
I went to college but guess what? I need to have some sort of social networking
account for this class.
Now I know
many people love Facebook as I want to spend the time to talk about why do
people like Facebook? What positive things has Facebook done for us? Some people like it because they like to follow
celebrities. Others use it so they are able to stay up to date with current
events. Then there are people that just want to meet other people that have
common interest, but if you take all those reasons an add them up, it still is
less then the number one reason why people use Facebook. The number one reason
is because their friends like it. So I know there are many people that have
gone through the same situation that I have.
So the question is, is society becoming slaves to Facebook?
In many ways I say yes. People being pressured almost forced to use it. Then to
use it, it pretty much tries to convince you to give out all of your
information. Also it makes you want to do certain things. Pose or do things in
real life in order for someone or even yourself to be able to talk about it on
Facebook and make people thing that you “cool” or whatever you want. Also it is
addicting, I know people that just go crazy if they are not able to check their
Facebook. There has been a study done by
the International Center for Media & the Public
Agenda and the University of Maryland that they say proves Facebook withdraw.
People don’t check it for a day can feel isolated and be craving to check (much
like drug withdraw). They also found people who said that they would start to
itch, and would ruin their day if they couldn’t get on. Some of their studies
found people that said they couldn’t help but typing in Facebook whenever they
looked at their phones it was built into the muscle memory of their fingers (mobiledia).
This scares me how Facebook can be controlling over the human body and force
people to feel certain ways and make them want or have to get on it to check
it.
Now I cannot argue against Facebook
without knowing the other side. I am open-minded to the fact that Facebook has
many great things it can do for the world even. President campaigns are now
expanding through social networking sites. It helps people know about foreign
affairs, which allows people the knowledge to do more and to help more.
Facebook helped spread the awareness of the earthquakes and tsunamis that hit
Japan and since the awareness was raised, more and more people sent donations
as help. I also know that there are almost countless other ways that Facebook
can help society and even help the world.
My problem
is that I do not see enough people using these good aspects of Facebook. There
are just too many people using it just to post about pointless things and to
many people just sitting their posting bathroom mirror pictures. This is why my
opinion of Facebook is negative. Can it change? Yes if people start using
Facebook to its real potential then Facebook has the potential to be one of the
greatest things invented mankind, but as of right now I view this and all other
social networking sites as a downfall of humanity.