I find the relationship between language and new technology really interesting. New words are invented: the word blogging still comes up as a misspell in Microsoft Word... webinar, netiquette, and even blook? and old words have changed meaning... like friend.
If you ask most people if they really consider their Facebook friends friends, they would reply: "some of them are, but the rest are just Facebook friends." What is the difference between a real friend and a Facebook friend?
On Page 74, Donath and Boyd talk about the same phenomenon with Friendster, an earlier version of social networking: "Linking to externally unknown people became so common on Friendster that the phrase, 'she's not my friend, she's my Friendster' arose to explain the relationship one has had with a person known only through that site." Here, they talk about the difference between an in-person contact and an online contact.
For Facebook, the lines are greyer. Right now, I have 1,419 Facebook friends. Almost all of them I met in person at some point through undergraduate leadership experiences: Orientation Leader, VP of Student Government, RA, etc. So, my relationships with some of my 'friends' range from meeting them for a few hours to my brother who I've known for 23 years. I would not consider all of my Facebook friends, even the ones I met in person, real friends.
Facebook recently came out with a Friend List Organizer which apparently allows you to organize your friends into groups and mass mail them, but these lists do not appear anywhere on your profile. Currently, privacy settings can't be edited related to these groups-- but many speculate this is the next step.
I'm assuming the features will continued to become more advanced until we can manage our image online much like we do in everyday life. I find Erving Goffman's research about self presentation and "face work" very interesting. Definitely worth discussion as it relates to online social interaction.
Anyway, here is a semi-related interesting link:
When a parent asks a child to be their friend on Facebook
And an interesting video:
A Pastor speaking out about the Facebook friend limit
1 comments:
Hey amy, i think you have a point. Meaning of a 'friend' has changed. Now that we have facebook, shouldn't it bring the long distance friendship closer? But it has changed, facebook friends are just acquaintances. Someone you met one time or another in your life, and you wanted to be just updated from to time what's going on in their life.
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