By Rosanna Marie Candler

Rising acceptance and registration of networking technologies has confounded the “nature of intimacy” (Barraket & Henry-Waring 2004) we practice in modern culture. An examination of technologically articulated communication on social networking website Facebook reveals a disappointing regression of interpersonal contact: from face-to-face to a single click of a mouse. To argue the metaphor that ‘Facebook is to socialising what masturbation is to sex’ is to acknowledge a similar outcome (both Facebook and real-life achieve social fulfilment), but criticize the online process on an interpersonal level. Network websites are popular for two key reasons; firstly offering convenience and accessibility to large groups of people, and secondly their ability to define, promote and control perception of identity. It seems Facebook has provided the opportunity to maximise quantity and dilute quality as we hurriedly reach our social ‘orgasm’ through 15 second status updates, disingenuous photo comments and the ever superfluous ‘poke’. Today with over 400 million active users (Facebook Statistics 2010), the website has a firm grip of influence on the manner in which individuals articulate and develop their personal affairs.

  

Critics of what Till Schummer (2007) refers to as ‘computer mediated interaction’ emphasise the shifting states of reality between online and offline expression; arguing that “To type is not to be human, to be in cyberspace is not to be real” (Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002).  Created in 2004, Facebook initially limited its membership to Harvard University students through the proof of an ‘edu’ email address. Over the next few years the website wielded to public demand and in 2006 opened its doors to the world. Due to this gradual evolution, Facebook has managed to maintain a reputation of being manifestly linked to offline reality- real names, photographs and personal details are all posted and shared without hesitation. Because Facebook has come closer to ‘real-life’ legitimacy than its predecessors, many users feel as though the website is a legitimate alternative to in-person contact. This false sense of security has given rise to a state of social lethargy. Through disfiguring the meaning of being ‘social’ and replacing meaningful interactions with thoughtless typed replica: “We as a whole have a sickness” (Turner, 2005) which threatens our established values of identity, friendship and shared interactions. 

Facebook has become habitually synonymous to everyday life. Two decades ago the act of posting a personal photo or private thought to an immeasurable audience would be absurd- but is now considered normal. Today many of our cultural, social and political interactions take place through eminently uncongenial technological surrogates.  Banking online has become not only communally acceptable, but according to a 2009 survey, Internet banking is now the number one method of banking (American Bankers Association). Online music consumption is also gaining high status, now counting for a steadily increasing 35 per cent of the market (Cheng, 2010). We are making similar reductions in our personal lives: passing up meeting with a friend for a quick phone call, and trading the phone call for a two-line Facebook comment. Simple impersonal online transactions which help make life a little easier, such as banking and music downloads, make perfect logical sense. However by ‘simplifying’ our social interactions through technology, we are in fact reducing them into introverted necessitous acts for the sake of ‘convenience’. We are impersonalising socialisation, rejecting and distorting the very definition of being ‘social’. 

In the nineteenth century Ralph Waldo Emerson observed that “friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command” (Rosen, 2007). The advent of social technologies appears to have answered Emerson’s grievance: Facebook smartly curtails once intimate exchanges of affection by ‘liking’ a person’s profile picture or sending an automated gift to their profile page. “I consistently trade actual human contact for the more reliable high of smiles on MySpace, winks on Match.com, and pokes on Facebook,” a Harvard graduate explained to The New Yorker,  “It’s a way of maintaining a friendship without having to make any effort whatsoever” (Baron, 2007). When contact is apathetically inspired by expediency rather than genuine interest- favouring greater quantity over quality- the method of communication (and indeed the friendship itself) is exponentially devalued.

In reference to online self-exposure, Michael Kinsley unapologetically brands social networking websites as “vast celebrations of solipsism” (2006). Facebook presents a variety of streams to convey personal details and construct identity from the ground up: an ‘Info’ page inviting the user to answer private questions about issues ranging from relationship status and sexual orientation to religious and political views, uploading and accepting ‘tags’ in photographs, posting status updates, links and comments on your own and others’ walls, forming and joining groups and much more. In the past a self portrait referred to a personal likeness created on canvas, but today our self portraits are democratic and digital, crafted from “pixels rather than paints” (Rosen, 2007).  The keyboard has become our modern day paintbrush and the online world our gallery. Facebook has given every online individual the power to fabricate, control and market their identity; which blinds our self awareness and detaches our online selves from ‘real life’. 

 The immediacy and freedom from physical kinaesthetic cues of offline communication allows individuals to develop and exhibit an optimum self. This may appear to be an expected extension of human nature, in which we place our ‘best foot forward’ in order to gain respect and positive reflections from those around us. Yet these online representations have no immediate or reliable way of being proven. As Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg agrees, the online sphere has produced an entirely new and vast method of self presentation, “People want access to all the information around them, but they also want complete control over their own information” (2006), and complete control means complete autonomy for fabrication.  How highly can we consider Facebook as a stage to host genuine friendships and interpersonal development when 57 per cent of people (SDSU 2009) believe social networking sites are advantaged solely for self promotion and attention seeking? Patricia and Peter Adler typify the individual seeking affirmation and approval as the “glorified self” (1989, p.229). Individuals who use Facebook to promote their own image and reinforce their popularity highlight the self-seeking and narcissistic tendency towards image validation- rather than encouraging a community of users working toward being connected.

A case in support of Facebook as a legitimate social platform argues that by exchanging comments back and forth between two people a genuine conversation is occurring- no matter whether it is online or offline. This argument often carries on to say that web-based dialogue is more meaningful, as many individuals feel more comfortable in expressing themselves without real time or physical pressures. This may be the case in a one-on-one situation (such as MSN Messenger or email); however Facebook is designed as an open system. The ‘newsfeed’ homepage provides constantly updating RSS bulletins on every update and action, no matter how inconsequential. In an online discussion forum, one anonymous commenter believes activity on Facebook to be a one-sided and ultimately selfish pursuit, “The people who are on there are all doing their own thing and nobody is interacting with one another. They are simply telling the world what they are doing and everyone is missing each other’s interaction” (SodaHead, 2010).  This tendency is reinforced by sociologist Cameron Marlow’s research: that for every network of 120 friends, two-way dialogue (such as messages or chat) only occurs with an average of four to six individuals (2009). By this notion, the typical user is not interpersonally communicating with approximately 95 per cent of their so-called friends. As a result, Facebook fails to support bona fide conversation on a reasonable scale. 

When we facilitate relationships through technology we are devaluing and rebuffing the use of body language, voice tone and eye contact.  Eruptingmind.com describes online communication as ‘blind’, and questions the future if this ignorance is to continue, “If we project this trend of blind communication, what sort of society we will be looking at in 20— 30 years?” (2010). No matter which way you look at it, sitting in front of a computer is a solitary exercise, and “users can end up finding lifeless documents equivalent to human communication” (Turner, 2005). Complex connotations, such as sarcasm and modesty, are lost in translation when articulated in cheesy cartoon ‘emoticon’ form. A family member dies, are you really going to post the crying symbol? You get a new job, would the smiley-face actually do your happiness justice? Facebook may be fostering a specific kind of typed word communication, but it lacks the richness of non verbal cues and the intimacy of being face-to-face. 

Facebook is threatening the future of language itself.  Slang may be a part of the natural evolution of communication (indeed Shakespeare is well known for including on-the-street dialogue into his plays) but Internet slang is entirely different. Defined by acronyms, keyboard symbols and shortened words, ‘netspeak’ includes phrases such as “LOL” (laugh out loud), “BRB” (be right back), and “IMHO” (in my humble opinion). Linguist Geoffrey Pullum believes that if such interjections were to become commonplace in spoken English, their “total effect on language” would be “utterly trivial” (2005). These words are popular because they offer a thoughtless shortcut to meaningful interaction. They are a quick and disingenuous fix— “How many people are actually ‘laughing out loud’ when they send LOL?” David Crystal (2001, p.34) asks— often sacrificing comprehension and symbiotic understanding for the harried end result. In adopting devolved substitutes for expression, users are distancing themselves from genuine and collaborative socialisation.

When Nielsen Online named Facebook as the website with the most traffic in the U.S., blogger Stan Shroeder announced the website to be the internet’s “ultimate time-waster” (2009). And it isn’t socialising that we waste all of this time doing. A Brigham Young University study (Beck, Nyland & Marvez 2007 p.13) of 184 social networking site members found that ‘heavy’ users “feel less socially involved with the community around them.” It also found that “as individuals use social networking more for entertainment, their level of social involvement decreases.” Facebook is sourced for personal amusement rather than seeking honest connectivity and this trend can be summed up in two words: ‘Facebook stalking’. “You want to know their business,” author Raina Kelly enthuses, “Facebook isn’t addictive—your desire to know what other people are up to is addictive. The over-sharing thrills you … Facebook is our own personal reality show and our ‘friends’ are the stars” (2009). This practice is referred to as “social voyeurism” (boyd 2007), and further removes the website from validity as friends are no longer formed on the basis of mutual fondness.

Social networks have afforded individuals the unrealistic means of adding, limiting and deleting ‘friends’. A friendship is no longer a mutual, balanced two-person exercise when it may easily be redefined and regulated. In his book, Friendship: An Exposé, Joseph Epstein considers modern technologies in the context of the old, “Proust once said he didn’t much care for the analogy of a book to a friend. He thought a book was better than a friend, because you could shut it- and be shut of it- when you wished, which one can’t always do with a friend” (2007 p.184). Social websites such as Facebook oppose real-life social civility by promoting the ability to consciously “shut” people out as though closing a book: selecting ‘ignore’ on their newsfeed updates, deleting messages and indeed blocking their profile completely.

Friendship on Facebook focuses an inordinate importance on accumulating and ranking people. For the first time in the history of the English language the word ‘friend’ has taken on a whole new connotation as a verb. People now point their cursers, double click and ‘friend’ one another as though neatly hitting social targets with Facebook arrows. The weight and meaning of friendship is being polluted by egocentric impulses towards publicly expressed popularity. As Boyd and Ellison point out, “public display of connections is a crucial component” (2007). An inclination to gather as many friends as possible is no longer a sweet expression of companionship, but of a far more insincere pursuit: status. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorised the ‘Dunbar number’ as 150, which refers to the “theoretical cognitive limited to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships” (1992). Recent research into numbers of friends on Facebook has revealed that once your network grows beyond 150 you are only increasing ‘casual contacts’ to track passively (Marlow, 2009). It is therefore virtually impossible for a teenager to have over 500 close friends, and yet Facebook profiles across the world boast this number as a proud status symbol. Providing an arena for friends to be collected and traded like football cards has conceived an alternate and unrealistic social landscape.

 

From a “growing consensus that the technological revolution is driving the transformation of today’s society and culture” (Gilding, 2002 p.1), Facebook has assumed a damaging intermediary role in contemporary conversation. It is through the dotcom ease of cutting social corners that meaningful interaction is jeopardised. The technology itself is neutral; however people in their millions have taken on social networking websites such as Facebook as vestigial surrogates to socialisation. As renowned Web 2.0 critic Andrew Keen describes his disapproval, “It’s not against technology. It’s simply saying that we make technology and we need to control it,” (2007).  As a whole, Facebook users have allowed themselves to become indolent- blindly devouring the website without considering its consequence on their social consciousness.

Log onto Facebook to send a wall post to the cousin you forgot to see on their birthday. Stalk your ex’s new partner. Publish an apathetic status, “X really feels like junk food, LOL!” Poke your friend who’s travelling around Europe. Check how many people have commented your new profile picture. Accept a friend request, but decide to limit their profile view because you aren’t sure if you’ve actually met. Skim the newsfeed and ‘like’ whatever stands out. Become a fan of ‘insert popular TV show here’.  Five hours go by. As you log out and close the window, consider this: You’ve just been socializing with yourself.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography 

American Bankers Association, (2009) ABA Survey Consumers prefer online banking: Survey shows shift in consumer preference away from visiting bank branches. http://www.aba.com/Press+Room/092109ConsumerSurveyPBM.htm Retrieved 18th April 2010  

Auday, B. & Coleman, S. (2009) Pulling the mask off Facebook: The impact of social networking activities on Evangelical Christian College students, a self reported study Gordon College. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/FeedEnclosure/gordon.edu.1321858729.01321858737.2534461381/enclosure.pdf Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Baron, N. (2007) My Best Day:  Presentation of Self and Social Manipulation in Facebook and IM. Internet Research 8.0 Association of Internet Researchers, Washington USA 

Beck, J. Nyland, R. & Marvez, R. (2007) Myspace: Social Networking of Social Isolation? Brigham Young University, Department of Communications, http://www.gentletyrants.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Nyland_Myspace%20isolation.pdf Retrieved 10^th April 2010 

Bes, (2007) Online communication may be hindering your offline communication skills, from blog ‘The Reasoner’, http://thereasoner.com/articles/online/online-communication-may-be-hindering-your-offline-communication-skills Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Buffardi, L. & Campbell, W. (2008) Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites, Online Edition: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin- Vol. 34, No. 10 http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/34/10/1303 Retrieved 31^st March 2010 

boyd, D. (2007) Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in social life. From D. Buckingham, MIT Press http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html Retrieved 10th April 2010 

boyd, D. & Donath, J. (2010) Public displays of connection: MIT University. Draft 2010 http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/socialnetdisplay.draft.pdf Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Boyd, D. & Ellison, N. (2007) Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html Retrieved 10th April 2010 

Crampton, T. (2009) China Youth: More Friends Online than Offline, from ‘Social Media in China and Across Asia’http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/china-social-media-facebook-twitter-china/ Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Crystal, D. (2001) Language and the Internet, Cambridge University Press, New York

DiMicco, J. & Millen, D. (2007) Identity management: multiple presentations of self in facebook. Conference on Supporting Group Work and Social Networking, Sannibel Florida, USA 

DiSalo, D. (2010) Are social networks messing with your head? Scientific American http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-social-networks-messing Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Dunbar, R (1992) Co-evolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, pages 681-720. Sourced by Google Books, Retrieved 20^th April 2010 

Epstein, J. (2007) Friendship: An Exposé, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York USA 

Eruptingmind.com, (2010) The Effect of Technology on Social Relationships. http://www.eruptingmind.com/effect-technology-social-relationships/ Retrieved 20^th April 2010 

Facebook Statistics (2010) www.facebook.com Retrieved 1^st April 2010  

Gilding, M. (2002) Families of the New Millennium: Designer Babies, Cyber Sex and Virtual Communities, from ‘Family Matters’ no. 62, Winter 2002 

Gladkova. S. (2009) Offline word of mouth still more powerful than online analogue, Profy. San Francisco USA http://profy.com/2009/06/15/offline-word-of-mouth-still-more-powerful-than-online-analogue/ Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Grusmuck, S. Martin, J & Zhao, S. (2008) Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. From ‘Computers in Human Behaviour’ Vol. 24, Temple University, USA 

Hearn, A. (2008) Variations of the branded self: Theme, invention, improvisation and inventory, chapter 12 page 194 of ‘The Media and Social Theory’, Hesmondhalgh, D. and Toynbee, J. Routledge, London 

Heussner, K. (2008) Facebook: Where Narcissists Connect? Facebook encourages self-promotion in most of us, experts say. Ahead of the Curve Technology, ABC News September 26^th 2008 

Katz, J. & Rice, R. (2002) Social consequences of Internet use. MIT Press, Massachusetts

Keen, R. (2007) ‘We make technology, we need to control it’. Gulf Times Wed July 25 2007 http://www.gulf-times.com/mritems/streams/2007/7/24/2_162831_1_255.pdf Retrieved 10th April 2010

Kelley, R. (2009) Facebook made me do it: Seven lies we tell ourselves about social networking. Newsweek Web Exclusive, Feb 20. http://www.newsweek.com/id/185641 Retrieved 18th April 2010 

Kinsley, M. (2006) On the internet, everyone knows you’re a dog. From ‘Like I Care’, Slate Magazine http://www.slate.com/id/2154507 Retrieved 2^nd April 2010 

Lardinois, F. (2009) How many friends can you really have on Facebook? ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_many_facebook_friends.php Retrieved 20^th April 2010

Marlow, C. (2009) The size of social networks, The Economist print edition, Feb 26^th. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13176775 Retrieved 18^th April 2010

Marturano, A. & Bellucci, S. (2009) A Debordian analysis of Facebook, Vol. 39 Issue 3. ACM Publishing, New York USA 

Mehdizadeh, S. (2009) Self-Presentation 2.0: Narcissism and Self-Esteem on Facebook, in ‘Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking’ http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2009.0257?cookieSet=1&journalCode=cyber Retrieved 31^st March 2010 

Metafilter (2004) The Internet’s repercussions on society, MetaFilter Discussion Board ‘Macboy’, May 8, 2004, 5:32 http://ask.metafilter.com/7100/The-Internets-repercussions-on-society Retrieved 20th April 2009 

Neilson Online, (2009) Media Release: Neilson provides topline U.S. data for June 2009. http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090713.pdf Retrieved 18th April 2010 

Perez, S. (2009) Forrester: Social Technology is like Sex, from weblog ‘ReadWriteWeb’, May 8 2009 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/forrester_social_technology_is_like_sex.php Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Pullum, J. (2005) English in deep trouble. Language Log, http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001829.html Retrieved 20th April 2010 

Raacke, J. (2008). CyberPsychology & Behaviour, pp. 169-174http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2007.0056 Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Reisinger, D. (2009) Shocker: People complain more online than offline, Digital Media. CNET News, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10406134-93.html Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Richards, C. (1998) Computer Mediated Communication and the Connection Between Virtual Utopia and Actual Realities, Queensland University of Technology, Australia http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac98/pdf/12_richards.pdf  Retrieved 20^th April 2009 

Rogers, M. (2007) How social can we get? ‘What evolutionary psychology says about social networking’, from The Practical Futurist MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20642550/ Retrieved 2^nd April 2010 

Rosen, C. (2007) Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism, “The New Atlantis”, Number 17, p. 15 

Schroeder, S. (2009) Facebook now the Internet’s ultimate time-waster. From ‘Mashable’ http://mashable.com/2009/07/14/facebook-ultimate-time-waster/ Retrieved 18^th April 2010 

Schummer, T. and Lukosch, S. (2007) Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction (Wiley Software Patterns Series), Wiley 

SodaHead, (2010) Is the concept of Facebook shallow and superficial? Discussion board posted by anonymous author: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/is-the-concept-of-facebook-shallow-and-superficial/question-820359/?page=1&postId=27780615#post_27780615 Retrieved 20^th April 2010 

Timpane, J. (2009) Facebook List: Narcissism or a social shift? Physorg.com, The Philadelphia Enquirer, February 16, 2009 

Turner, B. (2005) The Internet’s Effect on Relationships: Detrimental or Beneficial? http://benturner.com/other/online_relationships.php Soapbox Post, Retrieved 20^th April 2009 

Vandersluis, K. (2010) Creating social action through Facebook, George Mason University  http://digilib.gmu.edu:8080/dspace/bitstream/1920/3008/1/Vandersluis_Kelly.pdf Retrieved 1^st April 2010 

Wellman, B. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2002) The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell London

 

 

Facebook is to socialising what masturbation is to sex by Facebook is to socialising what masturbation is to sex is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.