Table of Contents Introduction: Welcome to Facebook! Culture Moving into the Digital Age: Identity and Capital digital Culture Research: Online Identity Theories Measuring a Virtual World: Methods Limitations
II: It's free and anyone can join: Reasons and Advantages for Joining (and not Joining) Facebook
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II: It's free and anyone can join: Reasons and Advantages for Joining (and not Joining) FacebookIt seems as though the growing membership on Facebook is spread by word of mouth. Many of the informants I talked to mentioned that they joined Facebook because someone told them about it. When I talked to Carrie about how she found out about Facebook she said: “because my friend from high school emailed me and told me about it.” Many people indicated that they joined because "everyone is on Facebook." Many users reported that their reason for getting and their main use of Facebook was for the purpose of keeping in touch with friends who were geographically distant, like Trisha, who said: “um, at first I used it for communicating with my close friends from home, and now I mainly use it to store pictures and to send messages to people I know abroad, like my cousins that live in London and people I’ve met traveling, and also it’s free" and again, Carrie: "[I got it] because my boyfriend's brother got it, and it was originally a network to talk to other people from other colleges... and since I went to boarding school I thought it was pretty cool to keep in touch with my friends that I didn’t live close to in California." These reasons all reflect the "weak ties" that Ellison refers to in her research. Weak ties are social connections that are not maintained through direct and frequent personal contact. By maintaining these weak ties with distant friends, users are capable of keeping a level of relationship with those friends active. That connection is a boost to the users social capital (Ellison 2007: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html). The reasons for getting Facebook typically begin with a desire to maintain "weak ties" and to participate in another form of communication and community, but users begin to understand very soon after joining, if they are not already aware, that Facebook is like all other forms of internet communication. It creates a mask for the user to operate out of, possibly resulting in more revealing, open communication that might not ordinarily happen through other, more expressive modes of communication. One older Facebook user, Chris, wrote to me: ...it seems easier when wanting to open up to someone on an emotional level, even to a degree of intimacy, that it is easier when not being face to face with someone. Maybe it's the sense 'safeness' we feel because really we are actually pouring ourselves out to the computer monitor and keyboard which stare back at us uncommitally and un-judging. We do not see the readers reaction or body language - it's not as traumatic or emotional.
maybe because it’s kind of like being at a party, without the awkward part, like, you can talk to anyone you want to talk to and if you feel uncomfortable talking to them you can poke them, and so, it’s a really good way to feel like you’re part of a community without actually having any awkward parts of being part of a community. [it is easier because] …people have time to think about what they’re saying to each other and I think what is difficult in communities is that when people see each other often they don’t necessarily have stories to tell each other or things to communicate as often, and if you have a while to think about what you want to say then you can think about things that you think would be more interesting to the people you’re talking to… it seems a lot like that but people like it better because you don’t have to be communicating with somebody, like, it’s like sending email but more convenient. Even the opportunity for editing what you want to say to someone after you say it is an advantage to Facebook, as Caroline mentioned to me in an interview: “anything on the internet, like instant messenger, anything like that it’s just easier to not be face to face with somebody. I can just say something, I just feel more comfortable saying something, you know? And I like that you can erase what you write on a wall, you can erase it.” “have you ever done that?” “well yeah, I did that the other night because I said something stupid, like, I’d been drinking, and I had the confidence to say something, and I woke up the next day and erased it” Sometimes, however, these weak ties and masked communications create a sense of non-genuine intentions. The same appeal that the "veil" of the computer can provide in encouraging relationships can also backfire to make users feel isolated and inauthentic. In my interviews I found several examples of the positive points of having such easy communication and also the negative aspects. Carrie said, "it sounds kind of ridiculous, but things that are so easy to do, just log in a type a message, it just seems so easy to me, like, I would rather do it a harder way because it means more in communicating with someone else." She implies that the difference between the forms of communication, like a letter and a really quick message on Facebook, could easily say the same exact thing but the medium the user uses conveys a certain amount of importance, affection, and loyalty. When I talked to Sarah about this, she said: Um, it’s [Facebook has] made it easier to [maintain old relationships], hypothetically it has made it easier for me, but in all honesty I think the form of communication lacks emotion and real contact of any sort, so, yeah you’re up to date on each others lives and stuff but, like, it hasn’t made me feel closer to any of my friends, I feel actually more distant just because it is so easy to talk to them on Facebook, it’s like, what, you’re going to reveal your whole life? Hannah, who does not have a Facebook account, said: "I think it’s not very genuine, it’s very shallow, like, if I’m going to invest in a person it’s not going to be a little blurb on their whatever, their page. I just feel like I’d want a greater investment in a person or I won’t spend any energy at all." I found that users who do not have Facebook accounts tended to be more hostile about this idea than people who did have accounts. The idea of a genuine relationship not being one maintained on Facebook was definitely part of a non-Facebook identity. Hannah, like Carrie, thought that the difference in communication reflects how a person feels about another person: I feel that a lot has been lost with the way we communicate now, like through email, electronically, because I feel like a lot of the things that people say they wouldn’t have the audacity to say if they were talking on the phone or face to face, so I feel like communication has been degraded in a way through depending on the computer so much, but, making it less genuine... I feel like there is no connection there, it’s just a blank screen, on the telephone you have a person’s voice and you can expresses emotion a lot more, with like, tone and volume, and I feel like exclamation points and smiley faces and computer jargon, I don’t feel it does that. And, it’s like a shortcut. I feel like it’s a shortcut. It’s a shortcut with the way you type because everything is abbreviated, and, I don’t know. I don’t like shortcuts. This reaction could be a rejection of the social capital gained by Facebook because it is not materialized outside of the internet. The connections made on Facebook are oftentimes not followed up by other forms of communication, if communication happens at all, creating a weak tie that is so weak it only exists through the acknowledgement that the users know the other exists. It is not necessary or life-altering to join a social networking website, one can gain and maintain social connections without it, creating cultural capital for themselves that is relevant and just as valuable as that which is procured from online sources. The opinion of Facebook by non-members and people who use it rarely in some cases has evolved into a negative judgment. Carrie confessed to me, hesitantly, how she feels about Facebook and it’s devoted users: “I tend to look down on it and get frustrated, with people using it a lot- and I think they spend a lot of time on it and then they complain that they don’t have enough time to do the things that they want to do, and it’s like, you spent an hour doing that, so I don’t know. But it’s a way to share things and sharing is great.” This sentiment was not uncommon when talking to non-users, who believed that everyone else are just “wasting their time.” The general response from users to that though was that “you don’t understand,” or “have you ever tried it?” These users were confident that Facebook’s attractiveness, especially in finding old friends, is capable of “hooking” anyone. In contrast, Facebook has gotten so popular in some circles that one informant said to me, “I have a lot of friends who don’t have one and they think they’re cool for not having one.” Not having a Facebook has become part of ones’ identity more so than having one. Even active Facebook users view non-users in a different light: “I just think there are some people who just aren’t interested in Facebook. But they probably have more of a life than people who are interested.” Members who are active on Facebook sometimes encourage those who have not joined to sign up. I participated in a conversation like this which involved college students who all were active Facebook members talking to a friend who was not a Facebook member. The members took turns asking the non-member questions as to why he had not joined Facebook yet. His responses were all forms of: “I’m not into that,” “I don’t need Facebook,” "you never know who reads that stuff," "the government owns Facebook," and “I don’t have time” while also pointing out how much time the users wasted surfing on Facebook. This response garnered laughter and more questions like “but don’t you want to find your old friends?" “how are you going to keep in touch after college?” and "I wonder if companies and the government really can see our information?" This last question touches on one popular reason I found that people do not join Facebook: fear that information about them may be revealed to the wrong person, especially future employers, the government, marketing companies, ex-lovers, spies, etc. This fear is also a fear of current users, with various Facebook rumors constantly circulating of who has access to all of “our” information. These rumors are an especially interesting social construction. Users are aware, because of the news, that Facebook is extremely large and holds massive amounts of information about millions of people. Because it is a free service, it provokes an underlying fear of what the actual intention of such a free service is. The underlying fear of “discovery” is clear in this response Sarah provides to why she un-tagged a picture of herself that someone else had tagged of her: I don’t think I liked the picture, and it was probably because I was at a party and there was lots of beer in the picture and I was doing something silly. I also heard that, my cousin told me that, employers look at it (laughs) at the Facebook thing. The pictures, it just kind of made me, it wasn’t worth having that picture up, it was just a stupid picture and, you know, I don’t want to be portrayed in certain ways. Although the Facebook privacy policy and their policies concerning selling and archiving information are available to all users and non-users, most people have not read it and do not know the answers to their suspicions. In some arenas, users' suspicions are correct in that they are monitored through Facebook. In one popular example, students at George Washington University believed that their parties were being crashed by their campus security because the campus security were watching the "events" section of Facebook, where users can post events (like parties) and invite people to attend. To prove their point, they advertised a party that would involve beer on Facebook. When the campus security showed up: "they found 40 students and a table of cake and cookies, all decorated with the word "beer." 'We even set up a cake-pong table,' a twist on the beer-pong drinking game, he says. 'The look on the faces of the cops was priceless.' As the coup de grâce, he posted photographs of the party on Facebook, including a portrait of one nonplussed officer" (Hass 2006: http://www.nytimes.com). In relation to other youth-based culture, some Facebook habits many of my informants mentioned meshed with those found by Penelope Eckert, in her book Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School (1989). In her research she found that the Jocks discourage social contacts outside of school that question school-based networks: "…since relations among Jocks are to a great extent a function of roles in the school, individuals not involved in the same role structure can only be anomalous" (1989:106). The fear of the “outside” world having access to Facebook creates a similar notion of a private sphere where users can play by their own rules of identity construction, which may be unacceptable outside of the Facebook sphere. Any intruders on this can also only be seen as anomalous. Some Facebook members who have joined recently have reported that they joined because of the opportunity to play games. In 2007, Facebook released a new platform to allow independent users and companies to design "applications" that could run on Facebook and allow users to join and participate in them. One application allows the user to "throw a sheep" at another user, or blow them a virtual kiss, while other applications let users display a map on their profile of where they have traveled. Many users were frustrated with the new addition, claiming that it "cluttered" Facebook up and that it was "becoming the new Myspace." Myspace, another social networking website, is known for having a very busy layout with many more customizable options than Facebook offered. Users on Myspace can create a colorful layout, import music and videos, and generally had much more freedom with how they could construct their profile. Facebook initially was very restricted and simple in the layout, only allowing users to fill out certain fields. Sarah said in response to why she doesn't like the Applications: who’s the hottest, rating, who’s your #1 friend, and, what are the ones, the video ones that come before your wall posts, I forget the name of it, but it’s where you can post videos, and those, if you’re on, whoever’s list you’re on, it’s like the longest list EVER before you get to your wall. It’s all dumb pictures and 1 or 2 videos I’ll ever watch, I don’t know. I don’t really like the computer.
With the emergence of Applications, Facebook users can now include various other "extras" into their profiles, which often can be interactive with other members. Some of the users I talked to who had recently joined Facebook stated that they joined to play Scrabulous, a popular "Application" game identical to Scrabble. Facebook users who subscribe to Scrabulous are able to play online games of Scrabble with their Facebook friends. Another recently popular game among the circles I had been researching was Jetman: a simple game that required the player to guide their "Jetman," "Jetgirl," "Jetbanana," etc through a cave while dodging obstacles. The longer the player flies, the more points he or she gets. Because of the scoreboards provided by the game, a player could see his score in relation to all his Facebook friends' scores who play Jetman. In addition to sparking friendly competition, especially with the "Jetman Tournament" option, users also competed together physically. I witnessed several occasions where people were all playing Jetman on different laptop computers in the same room. The Jetman game, in addition to Scrabulous, also proved to be a reason for many Facebook users who normally did not log into Facebook very often to log on much more frequently to play the games, also increasing their social activity on the site. Directory: ~socanth ~socanth -> Tights in Flight: a quantitative Deconstruction of Super-Masculinity in American Comic Books Download 113.23 Kb. Share with your friends:
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