Facebook
is supposed to reflect who we are, but is it really “who we are”? Facebook was
created so you can keep your friends updated on your life. It was supposed to
attract people like you who had the same to meet and keep up on your interests.
We see that in the beginning of Facebook it was just that but it was evolving.
People would share and post with close friends and interact more or less how
they did in normal life; then the streamline information effect we read about
in the “Is Google Making us Stupid” took effect. Instead of every bit of our
lives being shared, we began only showing the parts of us we wanted to
highlight. We highlighted our “party animal” side with endless photos of us at
parties, or our “political guru” side with endless statuses about how we knew
that our candidate could magically fix everything. We were no longer posting
about the “boring” stuff. People were less concerned about using Facebook as a
means to meet people and more as a web site to boast and show others how cool
or popular they are. We no longer cared about connecting with people we
actually knew but rather with how many people we were friends with. Facebook
was destroying our social skills as well.( http://www.avoidfacebook.com/2011/04/28/facebook-effect-on-society/)
We could argue with someone over comments on a status and then see this person
in class and not say a word; if someone really pissed you off all you had to do
was block them from your profile and you would never hear from them again.(
http://www.thehalsreport.com/2011/01/the-social-impact-of-facebook-in-2011/)
The way we would handle situations on Facebook could not be transferred over
into the real world, Facebook was like a social armor that we could do or say
anything in but when we took it off and were in public we would just shut down.
My
Facebook history is an interesting one. I looked all the way back in my
Facebook history and I found a few interesting things. When I first started “facebooking”
(apparently because a girlfriend made me) I found most of my statuses were
about her or about how much I liked her. We would have endless conversations
with absolutely no substance on each other’s walls. I would “like” things on
Facebook that I knew she would enjoy, and I would play her in games and pick
out virtual buttons that I thought she would like. Looking back I’m extremely
embarrassed with it but, that is what Facebook was to me, it was a way to
interact with my girlfriend and occasionally my friends. If you were to see
this you would see that Facebook’s only purpose was to show others my affection
for my (now ex) girlfriend. You would not see any other side of me, only the
side I wanted people to see. If you were to ask me about anything I had posted
back then I would get all embarrassed because that was the Facebook me, not the
real me.
Facebook started to take on a new meaning for
me. I began posting everything and sharing everything. If I got sunburn one day
you can bet I posed one hundred statuses recording the whole experience of that
one sunburn. The stupid me, the intelligent me, and just about every other me
there was put on display for every one of my friends to see. There was no part
of my life that I would not post about. I “liked” just about everything that
even remotely appealed to me, and I had statuses all the time. I was also
posting on other people’s walls more than ever before; I was just about as
social on Facebook as I was in real life. Now judging off Facebook you would
guess that I was super social and knew everyone, but again that was not the
case. It was the Facebook me, the real me was actually pretty shy, but it made
me look cooler. Facebook at this point was just a means for me to look cool and
attract new friends.
The last phase of my social transformation was
my bare minimum/stream line/”cool me” stage. I would rarely post statuses and I
never liked anything. I only posted the important things and I would “unlike”
groups and pages that were no longer cool to me. I would post pictures of me
playing rugby, of me partying, or of other things that were cool and were what
I thought would get me the most likes. My statuses were always funny and would
get a ton of “HAHA” comments, or they were really deep or smart and would start
big long conversations in the commenting section. Now I find that I’m still
using Facebook like I was in the recent past but only more stream line and more
open. I only post interesting things or things I think are funny and my photos
are starting to include family. So maybe I’m starting to grow into using Facebook
how it was originally meant to be used.
The
Facebook situation is an interesting one. You see that our use of it obviously
evolves as we grow but is Facebook really portraying who we are? I think you
can look at your own use of Facebook and see that it is not. We post only what
we think is cool and not anything else. We do not want anyone else to see our
not so cool sides so we don’t show them and when we get into public we become
awkward and insecure because we don’t have our Facebook armor to protect us.(
http://news.oneindia.in/2011/08/09/tech-negative-positive-effects-of-facebook-part-1.html) We have to like everything and Facebook ends
up consuming our lives leaving little time for real friends and real fun.
Because of that we are growing into a reclusive culture where the online
version of us is nothing like the real us and even I am a part of this problem
which is kind of a scary thought. I have not actually examined my Facebook life
and my real life until now, and I certainly did not expect that Facebook was
more or less a prison. I say prison because we only post the cool us so in public
we feel trapped to only act like the person our Facebook reflects
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