Deep down, I think people are scared of Facebook.
People are scared that one entity can hold so much personal information (it’s sobering to remember that while Google’s unofficial motto is 'Don’t Be Evil', Facebook has no such ethos). People are scared at the amount of time they spend on the site. People are scared that, god forbid, if Facebook collapsed or irrevocably changed their service terms (i.e. charging to use it) that they wouldn’t be able to live without it.
The online social networking honeymoon period is over. The years from 2004-2010 marked the era when we fell in careless teenage love with Facebook, with its cute blue colour scheme and sexy functionality. We gasped at its ability to connect and swooned when innovations as the news feed and like button were introduced.
But now this is changing. As we move from puppy-love into a serious mature relationship with the service, people are getting itchy feet. Articles such as this Jodie Pfarr’s from The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/flick-facebook-and-tune-in-to-real-life-20110122-1a0no.html) reveal our insecurities with the service; are we losing touch with ‘real’ life? Should we all log out of Facebook and reconnect with the physical world?
Pfarr certainly thinks so. She finds it troubling that “Facebook has removed part of our humanity”. I believe that what Pfarr has failed to realise by calling the masses to log off Facebook and reconnect with the ‘real world’ is that for a lot of users, particularly those in Generation Y (generally defined as those born from ~1982 to 2000), there is no more separation from Facebook and the real world. Facebook hasn’t removed some of our humanity; rather it has become part of it. It is no longer simply a matter of logging off and strengthening relationships physically. Generally, as a society, we have become dependent on online social networking as a part of everyday life.
What is interesting is that in the next 10 years there will be Facebook users who do not remember a time before Facebook. In 2020, people born in 2004 (The year Facebook was born) will have lived their whole lives in a society that uses Facebook. And these people will be sixteen – an age where social relationships are considered the be all and end all of existence. What will this generation’s dependence on Facebook be like? If the current trend continues, for these people, Facebook will not be a social distraction from which you can simply ‘log off’ and return to a normal pre-online world. For them, it would be like asking a Generation Xer to live without a telephone. Or asking a 19th century everyman to live without a mail service.
And this is the distinction that people like Pfarr seem to overlook. Facebook will gradually move away from its current image of being game-like, a distraction for self-absorbed teenagers, a way to present oneself differently to the one that appears in the ‘real world.’ Rather, Facebook will (some would argue already has) become as entrenched in culture as regular mail and the telephone. If you read the comments on Pfarr’s article, an overwhelming theme is ‘I don’t use Facebook because I like to get out and pursue relationships in the real world’.
I often wonder if there were the same reservations about the telephone when it was introduced. The phone provided a huge leap by making what previously took days or weeks happen instantaneously. It opened up the world in a similar way to Facebook. (The phone, however, is still in front, with an estimated 4 billion fixed line and mobile subscribers world-wide*, as opposed to Facebook’s, ahem, paltry usership of 550 million.)
But Facebook is slowly losing its tag as a substitute for ‘real’ friendships. For many, Facebook represents real friendships. The gap in value between a real world interaction and a Facebook interaction has diminished significantly. Pfarr claims that a wall post is not as emotionally satisfying as a telephone call or meeting up with a person in real life. But it could be argued that for the current and future generations, a wall post is a valid emotional interaction. The wall post can be seen by a lot of people (some like this feature, some hate it) but in any case, it is a public declaration of friendship to the other party. By wall posting someone, you demonstrate that you are willing and indeed happy to be associated as that person’s friend.
Facebook’s opponents argue that the service is a breeding ground for faux friendships, that it creates an environment where people become friends with others that they are not emotionally involved with. On Facebook, it is very likely that you are ‘friends’ with somebody that you don’t really consider your friend. Pfarr et. al. use this to demonstrate the worthlessness of the Facebook friend system, by lumping in acquaintances with long time buds. And they do have a point.
But what they maybe don’t realise is that these people are on the fringe of your online friendships. We have, probably to some extent unconsciously, become smart Facebook users. If these ‘faux friends’ post a status update or photo album, it is a fair bet that you might glance at the thumbnails in your news feed or glance over their update, but then discard it entirely and continue scrolling for updates from your true friends. It is the online equivelant of seeing someone you went to school with in the street, and quickly turning to look in a shop window until they pass so you don’t have to talk to them. The faux friendship argument assumes that we give equal weight to the updates of all our Facebook friends; the truth is that 99% of users don’t.
Of course then this raises the argument ‘if you’re just going to ignore them, why ‘friend’ them in the first place?’ My answer to this question is that most of us simply haven’t matured as Facebook users yet. And can you blame us? We’re the first generation in human history to use this technology, hence extraneous friendships with people we don’t consider friends and the occasional pointless status update. There was no social etiquette to follow when we first received friend requests from old high school acquaintances. Many of us had to decide what the etiquette was on the spot, and at the time the etiquette seemed to be ‘yep, I know that person, therefore I will connect with them.’ Now, it seems, as we are gaining our online networking sea-legs, we are becoming a little savvier in the way we use the technology. Friendship culls, in which users delete ‘faux-friends’ are becoming more common. Our initial reaction to online networking was very high-school, with all of us stockpiling huge amounts of emotionally vacant friendships so as to appear popular. But now that we have successfully navigated the high-school life, we are realising that a few close friendships are infinitely more valuable than 600 pointless ones. The way we use Facebook is evolving.
And that’s why I’m disappointed that users like Pfarr have jumped ship already, or others never boarded the Facebook ship in the first place. They are truly scared; scared that Facebook will change the way they live their lives. These people prefer to cling to pre-online social networking days, in an environment in which they feel more comfortable. And this is fine, it’s justifiable. But I hope they realise that online social networking is the future, and at the current trend it will continue to be Facebook leading the way. And that does sound scary. To think that Facebook could be around for another fifty or a hundred years is somewhat mind boggling. But what must be remembered is that, just as A.G Bell could never have predicted the evolution of the telephone into the mobile phone; it is ignorant to assume that in twenty years Facebook will resemble the service it does now. The basic connectivity and functionality will be there, just as the basic concept of the telephone has not changed from the A.G Bells first primitive model to the latest iPhone. But to think that in 2020 and beyond we will still use Facebook in the same way we do in 2011 is demeaning to the capacity of human adaptation and innovation.
So the next time someone tells you you’re spending too much time on Facebook, tell them that you’re contributing to a global cultural communication shift that will be reminiscent of the telephone’s cultural and social impact of the 20th century. If you’re lucky, they’ll include it in their next status.
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