Today’s readings explore social networking sites, an area you’re all probably quite familiar with. As native “experts,” do you think these articles capture the appeal of Facebook, myspace, and the like? What drives you to participate or abstain from these sites?

(And remember to please add your thoughts to the thread on Midd’s internet presence.)

15 thoughts on “Responses for 4/29

  1. In Boyd’s article, she claims that social networks provide “teens with a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues and negotiate public life.” Later in her argument she even says that “a MySpace profile can be seen as a form of digital body where individuals must write themselves into being.”
    And while I agree with Boyd’s arguments that social networking sites can in fact help develop social skills (she mentions that as adults that may be better able to deal with gossip), encourage creativity in terms of web design, quotes, etc, and even increase technological literacy, I feel as though social network sites for the most part are more destructive than helpful.
    One: There are a huge procrastination tool. You can waste hours on Facebook, MySpace, etc.
    Two: They seem to bring drama in a whole new arena. Such as the “Top 10” tool on MySpace–that’s almost an invitation to be cruel. Even on Facebook, you can now obsess over who your ex is dating, who looks like a whore in a picture, and the list goes on. And while I do not believe that the problems are not as extreme in College (although Midd Confessional is proving me wrong), the home could be a place of haven from the politics of school hierarchies, but with the explosion social sites, it’s starting to seem that there is no refuge from gossip.

    I have never had a MySpace, although, what it has done for bands is pretty amazing. So in terms of spreading new music, social networking sites and blogs have been crucial. I have a Facebook account, and I think it’s great if it’s used for social networking: it allows me to keep in touch easier with friends who are abroad/graduated and friends back home. Although I despise the applications.

    So I guess my final consensus is that social networking sites do serve some valuable societal purposes such as the sharing of information. However, I think the are detrimental to teenage development. As we are seeing with Midd Confessional, these types of sites have the ability to dehumanize people: it’s much easier, and more cowardly, to make cruel comments about someone when they are just a name on a screen instead of face to face.

  2. Social networks
    I did not join facebook to be part of a movement for social justice, although I did join the group to stop the Middlebury logo and to reduce the “news feeds” so I understand why some people view facebook in that way. I joined way back in the summer of 2004, back when there was only a limited amount of select colleges. Since there are only a handful of seniors in this class, I wonder how many of you guys have even seen the earlier welcome page:
    http://web.archive.org/web/20040808032500/http://www.thefacebook.com/

    I remember my high school classmates getting really excited about joining groups, but I resisted for a while, just because I had no interest. I remember the kids whose colleges were not featured felt really left out. I was invited by a freshman roommate to join so that we could all see each other before we actually met. I “Friended” many of the kids that would end up living on my hall, and I traded a few messages with them before I got to midd. Remember, there was no “wall” or “photos” so basically all anyone ever did was just click on profile pictures and wonder if the people were as “hot” in real life as they looked in the pictures.

    I told my parents that I had “met” many of my fellow students that would be living on my hall before school even started. They couldn’t believe it. I think that was a very interesting time to be on facebook because for that brief period of time, many users were online just to meet new people. I would say that now, facebook means maintaining friendships and contact information with people that I’m currently friends with more than meeting new people. Just like the survey of Facebook use from the article said, more facebook users are already friends with the people they friend beforehand. I have maintained friends with many of the students I went abroad with, and it’s very simple to stay in contact with them because I can just drop them a message or look at their profile. Facebook has managed to make maintaining friendships even easier than emailing.

    Also, I was wondering if people felt they same way about the exclusivity of facebook. I remember when facebook expanded to allow more and more schools, there were groups called “I remember when facebook was only for SMART colleges” and stuff like that. Then when high school kids were let on, people said “I remember when only COLLEGE students were on facebook” then when companies were let on, it was “Facebook for students ONLY” and finally when it opened up to everyone, I literally have friends in the “I hate the facebook GLOBAL addition”. There is something to be said about people liking the exclusivity of it.

  3. I think that Boyd’s and Scola’s articles both made some really good points. Especially Boyd’s ideas about the basic structure of a SNS: a personal profile, a friends page, and some kind of messaging service. When I thought about it, this is all that Facebook really is, and I love it! I agree with Boyd’s ideas about the exclusivity of these sights that make them appealing. Like Brian said in his comment, I was one of those people who did not appreciate it when Facebook opened itself globally. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with employers or high school kids using Facebook, it’s just that now Facebook isn’t a cool college-kids only thing. I remember when I first got my Facebook freshman year (on the behest of my friends) and it seemed really cool and exclusive. And while it’s neat to be able to keep in touch with my underclassmen friends from high school, the coolness factor is definitely decreased.

    One of the biggest problems that I had with Scola’s article was her focus on groups. While I have joined over 100 groups on Facebook, I probably only participate in two or three. So the whole idea of Facebook being some revolutionary new tool for protest groups to get together is definitely plausible, as she showed, but I don’t think it’s the main attraction to the site. I got a Facebook because upon entering college I was terrified of losing touch with my friends back home, so this site seemed like the best way to prevent that. Ironically, I use Facebook now to keep in touch with my college friends and organize events together, and not so much to keep in touch with more that one or two friends from home. It’s like having an iPod or any other kind of MP3 player; it’s a normal part of college life. If you don’t have a Facebook it’s really strange, and it can be kind of tough to stay in touch with someone on campus if you can’t just post on their wall or send them a video, since we’re so busy here at Middlebury.

  4. As someone who once used MySpace in high school, before high school facebook came out, and now uses facebook, I can honestly say that I use it to keep in touch with friends and to look at their photo albums. There was a time when I obsessed about how my profile looked and how it would appear to other people, but then I grew out of that phase. I could see a little bit of myself in Danah Boyd’s article regarding the youth and social networking sites. However, the fact that it can turn into a status competition for the youth is very frustrating. It can appear to be a race between who has the most friends, is attending the most events, listens to the coolest music, plays on varsity sports team, etc. I think that facebook was better off when anyone under college age was not allowed on it. It almost requires a sense of maturity- you can’t make your profile/image into a competition or you will literally drive yourself crazy. I think this is a huge drawback to social networking.
    So at this point in my social networking phase, I agree with Melissa in that the applications are endless and annoying. It makes it hard to look at anyone’s profile and I don’t care what Disney Princess you are. I also think that it is becoming more and more of an invasion of people’s privacy. Over dinner tonight, my friends were saying that if facebook was able to tell who looked at your profile, they would never use it…and who knows if this could happen in replace of the news and mini-feed applications? I think facebook was most effective when it was basic and not complicated. It is impossible to keep up with all of the new features, but you feel like you have to!

  5. I agree with a lot of Melissa’s points and we seem to use Facebook for the same reasons (what Boyd refers to as “the maintenance and reinforcement of pre-existing social networks.”) I’m also in complete agreement that SNSs can be huge time-sucks. I can totally relate to 17-year-old Pam who lurks through profiles at 2:30 in the morning because there is “nothing better to do.” (Boyd 127) Aside from the facebook mods (which I have no experience with so I’ll leave that part of it to someone else), facebook isn’t all that different from a French streetside café where uptight Parisians sit smoking and trash talking people who wear boring white sneakers or leave there poodle’s unshaved. They both provide us entertainment in the form of “social voyeurism.”
    Now Boyd goes to say that, for teenagers, “social voyeurism passes time while providing insight into society at large.” (127) Again, I would side with Melissa and say that SNSs are more harmful than helpful…and here’s why. Sure, SNSs might help teach people the process of image management and how to adjust one’s personality according to social cues, these cues are very different from the ones we recieve in the real world. We interperet textual reactions very different than we do through our bodies. (Boyd 129) If a teenager spends too much time on facebook, he is certainly not strengthening his ability to read say facial expressions. This disconnect from body language is a big barrier to using SNSs for me personally – everyone who knows me will tell you that I am constantly looking for signs of approval (a nod, a smile, whatever) or disapproval when speaking.
    That leads into my final point – I want to be approved or dissaproved on the bases of what I say or, for that matter, do. As Boyd notes, in SNSs “You are who you know.” (130) While it is merely my opinion, I feel that it is healthier to judge people by how they act and what they say rather than by simply who they know. Someone might be popular, but they could also be an awful person.
    Furthermore, I don’t know about you guys but I have never rejected a Facebook friend request from anyone at Middlebury college (even if I didn’t know them or their friends). So even my acceptance of their “friendship” doesn’t always accurately reflect my taste in people. And I also haven’t gotten around to friending some of the people I hang out with every day – haven’t had the need to.
    One last note of interest – one of my sweet mates just broke up with his girlfriend of 2 years about a week ago. This afternnon when he was online, he noticed that she had gone through all of their prom pictures and other photos together and detagged herself from them. It actually helped him move on knowing that she had done the same. Just kinda struck me as interesting.

  6. I consider myself someone fairly experienced with social networking sites. I hit myspace my sophomore year of Highschool, mostly because it was the ‘in thing’. However, I found that perhaps far more importantly, it was a fantastic way of getting creative work known, and drawing attention to my short films. After a short amount of time, I pretty much abandoned myspace because of the drama associated with it. As Melissa stated, often times these social networking sites can do more harm than good, and for me myspace was the prime example. The whole top friends thing is so incredibly isolating it’s ridiculous. I can’t even begin to recount how many fights erupted in my HS because of something so stupid.

    Even now, Myspace is overly populated with people looking for attention in the wrong ways. However, what it does for bands and filmmakers cannot be denied. I’ve linked up with several prominent stunt groups on the west coast through myspace: something I otherwise would not have been able to accomplish without myspace at the time.

    Facebook is something of a different beast. I use it primarily to get in contact with college friends, and also to keep in touch with a few friends from home. Groups aren’t something I actively participate in. I may be a part of many of them, but I almost never post. In some cases, such as movements that need support and I think deserve it, I join because the numbers actually count. But beyond that, I wouldn’t argue that facebook as a rallying site is a selling point. People sort of passively participate. Though I’ll definitely agree that it can draw attention to important events, that way people feel more inclined to go and search out information on things.

  7. I generally use facebook to link names to faces, search for email addresses and look at photo albums. I am more interested in networking in person with people then virtually. I enjoy the ability to interact with people from all over so my online communication is generally geared toward blogging.

    In another vein, social networking sites do present a new organizational method for collective action. As we read, they are being used to instigate transnational movements. More broadly, social movements are increasingly being forced to rely on the net for communication and information diffusion. Ly.nn Owens, my soc. prof, forwarded me an article about Al-Queda’s network of linked sites.

    http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/04/512ce9d3-53ae-46cc-800b-c8ff317f7178.html

    It shows that Al Queda sites are generally 1.0.

    It concludes with “Al-Qaeda has tried to be interactive, it is quite old-fashioned. So the question that we end up with is: Al-Qaeda — which had done so well using the Internet to spread its message over the last few years — are they now doomed to fade with this new more interactive and user-generated network? And will they be replaced by a much larger, much more integrated, much freer, much more empowered world in which it is very difficult to control messages and in which no one has a monopoly on information?”

    Kimmage concludes that the desire of Al-Qaeda’s media-production teams to strictly control the messages being put out on the Internet could ultimately backfire, causing Al-Qaeda to lose support from its sympathizers.

    “Freer and more empowered networks, in the end, will do more to undermine Al-Qaeda’s message than the actions of any government,” he says. “In the end, an idea that takes root in the political sphere — an idea that encourages people and inspires them to commit violence — it only fades and dies when the idea itself is discredited. The discrediting of this idea, of this ideology, will happen online through a large conversation that takes places mainly without governments.”

    What do you think?
    e

  8. when i read the article about “MySpace” and teenagers the first thing i realized is that these sites are way more important to younger people than they are for college students.
    i have never used facebook or any other SNS, so i don’t even know about all the stuff i can do with it.
    but i noticed that people my age always try to explain why they use it, as if it was embarassing or something.
    i have had this conversation plenty of times.

    Mica: ah, no, but i don’t have facebook.

    someone else: ah, well… i just use it because it is a good way of keeping in touch with people.

    i heard this multiple times, and it surprises me. i never say anything against facebook simply because i don’t consider it a bad thing. still, people become very defensive when i say i don’t have an account. is it because they are ashamed of the importance they gave to SNSs in previous years?

    so, well, i cannot really talk about whether the articles “capture the appeal” of SNSs because i am not familiar with them.
    but i can answer the second question. why do i abstain from it?
    i don’t know, probably because i never had the need for it. i don’t have a camera so i don’t take pictures (and i usually find boring to look at other people’s pictures), i am pretty bad at writing e mails and keeping in touch with people, and i don’t think i have the time to check on people’s lives online.
    since i’ve never used it, i don’t know what i am missing…

  9. As someone who is pretty “plugged-in” and who takes advantage of much of what we now consider “Web 2.0”, I must admit that social networking sites are something of a black hole in my…pluginedness if you will. I’ve never accepted the assertion that the internet is driving people away from “normal” interactions, but felt that Facebook was pretty unnecessary. My outlook was that I know who my friends are, they know who they are and they can email me\call me if they need to get in touch. I finally caved in just before arriving at midd, but i never checked it or bothered to friend anyone.

    But what I think is so fascinating about Facebook and what struck me most in the articles is how Facebook and this latest generation of social networking sites aren’t using the vast expanse of the internet to connect strangers, but rather are based on relations formed in the “real” world. I never really dwelled on how peculiar that is. It’s kinda like buying a Land Rover, but only driving on highways. Yet, although there are certainly instances of people you’ve never met friending you on Facebook, it truly has mostly stayed within the realm of people you already know–whether you’re just taking a class with them or have known them most of your life. It leaves me wondering why this is. Is it because of the ways the users have defined Facebook, or has the program itself been engineered to influence this type of usage? Maybe both?

    I think the articles did a pretty great job of quantifying something so unquantifiable–the appeal of social networking sites. Something harder to quantify is why some sites succeed while others don’t, and why some sites are more popular in some regions\countries than others. The Friendster remarks were pretty interesting…survival of the fittest.

  10. Like Kyle and Melissa, I was struck most by Boyd and Ellison’s assertion that sites like Facebook “enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks.” My class was the first at Middlebury to experience Facebook pretty much from day one of college. Freshman year was like a horrific teen remix of a bad scavenger hunt movie (I’m thinking American Treasure here) . . . if you get the best profile picture, the most cryptic yet deeply meaningful yet sexy yet fun profile write-up, the most “when r we hanging ouuuuuuuttttt??????” wall posts, and the most friends—both at your own school and at as many other schools as possible—you will win some kind of secret friendship ability that will make you rock star popular and genuinely well-liked by everyone. (Oh em gee.) Having a visual representation of your friendships for yourself is interesting, but in the scrappy world of adolescent social life, visually quantifying and qualifying those friendships (more in terms of qualifying the friend) online can give you an offline boost.

    That was an appeal back in the day, but now I seriously consider deleting my Facebook account every few weeks. Ultimately, I wind up keeping it because it gives me the ability to connect names to faces, as Ernest said, and also to stalk high school friends I haven’t seen in four years. Periodically I reach out, but usually I just check out what they’re up to in hopes that they’re doing well. The friends I really want to keep in touch with—my close friends from elementary/middle/high school—have actually formed a little LiveJournal circle, and we all screen posts to just the group of old friends. It’s like those massive email updates people send while abroad, but since the recipient list is more intimate, the conversation can be, too.

  11. I, too, am of the class that remembers the “golden age” of Facebook, when it was just starting up and only existed at colleges. I think those first few weeks of using Facebook and meeting hallmates, suitemates, etc. were/are the only time that any notion of a “pure” purpose for the SNS (i.e. meeting new people) takes over. After that point, as Boyd argues, SNSs become more an online, somewhat idealized depiction of the self.

    I hesitate to pass a totally negative judgment on SNSs, however. Nowadays, I use Facebook only to check messages from old high school friends or friends studying abroad, but in that capacity it is actually a good way to keep in touch. That being said, it’s more a facilitator of existing social networks than it is an actual constructor of new social bonds (as Boyd argues). Most people simply don’t “friend” random people they don’t know, and in terms of long-distance bonds, the only friends from high school that I keep up with on Facebook are friends that I have an active wish and interest to keep up with…given less “advanced” technology like the cell phone, I would probably call them every once in a while.

    Finally, I don’t think that the argument for Facebook as a huge procrastination tool holds much water. I can also waste hours reading Slate articles or surfing Wikipedia…is that a waste of time? Maybe, but I think there are certain entrenched notions about Facebook as an instrument of evil that we should be careful about.

  12. As others have already pointed out, I use Facebook as a social tool to keep in touch with friends I don’t see often and I also use Facebook to share links and various things I create online. I imported my blog to the mini feed and I also share videos I make as well as looking at my friends’ profiles and writing on their walls.

    So yes, Facebook is a social tool, a twenty first century telephone. But it is also something else to me, (as much as I don’t want to admit this) I use this to market myself. I would compare Facebook to dressing a certain way in order to communicate a “look.” On Facebook, I fill out my profile and add (a limited number) of applications to try to say something about who I am. And I think everyone on Facebook does this. Even not adding applications and having a minimal profile is a statement, it is saying you are too “cool” for Facebook. In my opinion, Facebook is a huge part of our generation and however you react to Facebook (even by not having one) is a statement about who you are.

    Granted you could argue that I’m reading too much into Facebook, but I really think Facebook is a central part of how we portray ourselves. And I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think it’s pretty cool that we have the power to portray ourselves how we like.

    On a separate note, I am very interested by whether or not Facebook is good for our community and our politics. Nancy Scola’s article was interesting, but I think Facebook plays an important role outside of directly influencing politics through groups and organizing: it creates social capital by bringing people together. Since my cousin works at Facebook, I can look at Mark Zuckerberg’s profile (since we’re both in the San Francisco network) and recently his status said, “Mark thinks that together we really can bring more unity to the world just by helping people stay connected with the people they care about.” This definitely a little corny, but I mostly buy into this. By strengthening relationships, Facebook is creating what political scientist Robert Putnam calls Social Capital which in turn is essential for our democracy.

  13. At this point, people don’t even ask me if I have facebook because it is already assumed. When people ask me, “Why” i belong to facebook, my answer reflects many of the points touched on in the articles. In the end, I use facebook and other SnS networks as everyone else in this blog seems to, as a way to communicate, a space to maintain and establish networks and interact. As my network of friends, family, and acquaintances expand, both in number and physically (across the word), facebook primarily allows me to stay in contact. In this way, yes, the articles reflect this general sense of maintaining connections and being apart of a community.

    On the other hand, these articles bring up another perspective that at first glance, I would not necessarily consider, but perhaps should. Sociologists such as, Daniel Bell, author of “the Coming of Post-Industrial society” and Manual Castell’s, author of “the Information age”, discuss the contemporary period that perhaps highlights the social context of the SnS phenomenon. Bell writes, “These two concepts- the pace of change and the change of scale- are the organizing ideas for the discussion of the central structural components of the post-industrial society, the dimensions of knowledge and technology” (Bell, 174). In a period of advanced capitalism, of expanding knowledge and technology, we arrive at an age of wide networks. Castell’s discusses this in relation to the concept of “the network society”. As interaction, socialization, and communication become increasingly distant with the rise of new, technological feats, the emergence of SnS networks such as Facebook and MySpace establish themselves within the broader discussion of “networked publics” (as Danah Boyd suggests). Within the “Post-industrial”, “Information Age”, Sns present a new form of socializing and engagement within the context of the new virtual society. Although its members might see it as simply a forum to post pictures, or keep in touch with elementary/middle/high school friends, the rise of SnS forums presents the next technological feature that enables us to establish connections within the virtual world of distant “network societies”.

  14. I had no intention of joining Facebook until my friends made an account for me. I have only used Facebook to look at my friends pictures and get in contact with people I went to high school with or know from home. (Now that I think about it, gone are the days when I would sit with my friends and look at pictures from our respective trips or outings. All viewing sessions and comments are reserved for the pictures’ debut on Facebook.)

    I agree with Melissa, Kyle and Jessie that Boyd’s assertion that SNSs provide “teens with a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues and negotiate public life” does not tell whole truth of the matter. More and more I see people confusing the dynamics and requirements of friending on Facebook with the dynamics and requirements of “friending” in real life. Numerous times my friends told me that a freshman they met or spoke to once friended them on Facebook. From their scandalized tones, I understand that this rates high on the scale of sketchiness and is a friending no-no. In real life one encounter does not qualify you for friendship with another. There are a slew of words to describe people’s relationship to each other. From colleague to acquaintance to BFF, we have most everything covered. But Facebook only has Friend. Although they have tried to clarify the level of intimacy by allowing users to check the box describing how you and your new friend met, at the end of the day all your acquaintances, colleagues and BFFs are counted the same. I’m not suggesting that all your BFFs or each member of top10 count as two. I just think that the friending procedure on Facebook spills into real life sometimes and could end up, at best, with you and your friend reminsicing saying “I though you were sooo sketchy at first” or at worst inhibiting real life friendships.

    Just as another quick note in response to Sally’s comment that about how her and her friends use of Facebook would change if you could tell who visited your profile. I also use Hi5 in basically the same ways I use Facebook but when I found out that people could check who had visited their profile, my use of it changed. I only used it to look at the profiles of friends I had spoken to recently (because looking without saying hi is tantamount to walking up to someone you know, looking at the pictures in their wallet and the walking away…very odd and very rude). Now Hi5 has a feature called “View as another” giving you license to stalk people as you would on Facebook.

  15. In freshman or sophomore year of high school, I remember hearing a rumor in the hallways that there was a website where people were gossiping up a storm about other students and even teachers. I didn’t really do much to address it, but finally in my junior year, I realized what it was… MySpace. I hadn’t gotten one (and never really wanted one) until my ex-girlfriend made one for me and from there on out I was into it for maybe a few months. I still have it to this day and maybe check it once a month (I’m gonna delete it… yeah mos def!)

    After reading Scola’s article, I wasn’t surprised to read about the global group that was made to support Burma, called Support the Monk’s Protest in Burma, or the group, Students for a Free Tibet, because I’m used to seeing these things every day on Facebook (almost). But what did surprise me was that it actually worked and sparked more people to join the protests on Global Day of Action for Burma. Also, I thought the story about Cedar Fest at Michigan State, where a student (somehow named Alex Bookbinder) used Facebook to promote bringing back this festival to their school, was interesting because once violence had ensued, the police put the blame on Bookbinder, for making the Facebook group. This article definitely captures the appeal of Facebook and I think that it’s pretty scary how Alex meant no harm and wanted to bring back tradition, and now he’s blamed for the violence that took place.

    I’m not too impressed with Boyd and Ellison’s “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” because it states old information that any SNS user already knows today (except for some of the history if you haven’t started in the late 90s, early 00’s). It is, however, a good analysis of SNSs in that they explain every aspect and detail of them and their meanings.

    What drives me to participate with Facebook is the fact that it is like a community, one where new information about campus, and around the world, can be found, friend’s birthdays, and communication with others about an important topic, or nothing at all. Although I started with My(creepy)Space, I find SNSs to be a useful tool and valuable to the growing digital media age today.

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