When I first started researching the Internet as a graduate student, one of the first topics that grabbed my attention was webcams. There were webcams showing fish bowls, traffic, pizza shops, and people's private lives. JenniCam was created by a woman in Washington D.C. who had five cameras placed through her apartment that were always recording her life as it happened. In reading about JenniCam one of the common ideas related to its popularity was that everyday people liked turning on and watching how boring and normal her life was. It made them feel good that someone else was at home alone on a Friday night.
There were also a lot of discussions about the authenticity of these people centered web cameras. How much did these people censor their lives, knowing that cameras were capturing the daily details of their lives? How did they attempt to control the images being sent out to an anonymous public?
Which brings us to Facebook. Is there something reassuring to people that they can always visit a place where 'friends' are always hanging out? Are we never really alone? In what ways do we use facebook to connect with each other and in what ways do we use it to create a controlled identity? How do we censor how we present ourselves through the status updates we write? Do you post mainly good things that happen in your life or do you use facebook to vent about the hard times?
In my own experiences I try to keep personal emotions out of my statuses, using it more to share pictures of my kids or to relay my interests. I do notice that a lot of my 'friends' constantly post about the good things going on in their lives. They seem to exist in a state of perpetual happiness. I also have 2 or 3 'friends' who are more likely to post about the misery and unhappiness in their lives.
I found a blog post on Switched tonight which is about a study of facebook completed by a doctoral student at Stanford. The post "Facebook Makes Us All Sad Because Everyone Is Happy But Us" by Lella Brillson talks about the findings of the study. The major argument is facebook presents a filtered version of the self and that our exposure to these types of idealized identities makes us feel even more inadequate about the level of happiness in our own lives.
Do you agree? Are you using facebook in a similar way? Have you noticed this as a trend or does the study overstate the level of idealizing and censorship occurring on facebook?
I find in my personal consumption of Facebook, it is true that all parties are very much aware of the image that they are presenting to others, and make conscious attempts to control this image. None of my Facebook friends, however, seemed to filter their statuses to appear persistently happy, and in my purely anecdotal experience it seemed to represent a picture of life that was diverse, if not entirely accurate. People used Facebook to seek support when times were bad, to obtain resources when they had none, to send good wishes on birthdays or congratulations on major life events like graduations. While cherry-picked statuses occurred widely (and perhaps almost universally), I never got the impression that people were censoring out the bad times to cultivate a more positive image of themselves. This could be because most of my Facebook friends appeared to take social networking very seriously, checking it frequently and updating it with photos and details of their lives several times a day. It was utilized it as a major method of communication, allowing people to share both good and bad events with their close friends and distant acquaintances alike. While I have no concrete way of judging whether my experiences are normative, it seems likely that the tendency to post idealized statuses may be dependent on additional factors. Someone who updates their statuses without filtering out their misfortunes may use Facebook to an entirely different end than someone who only posts glowing statuses about the good things happening in their lives. It’s hard to tell whether the people from the Stanford student’s study viewed Facebook in the way that the people I have interacted with seem to. It’s possible that the tendency to over-idealize occurs more frequently among different ages or demographics than I’ve encountered, but for whatever reason my Facebook friends never seemed to have much trouble indicating their unhappiness, though rarely in detail, whenever it occurred.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about the importance of context in terms of age and demographics. I tend to agree with your assessment but also find it interesting that the study seems to be about college students. It would be interesting to talk to 'friends' about how they decide what to use as a status update and what they keep more personal.
ReplyDeleteI know with my experience that a majority of statuses among my college aged "friends" tend to be negative (surprisingly) with statuses complaining about school, work, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, cars, parents, snow, etc. And then, one day as I was scrolling through the news feed, a close friend of mine posted something like "Facebook makes me feel better about my life because everyone else seems a lot more depressed."
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how Facebook statuses have almost become an outlet for many to vent their daily stresses, and while no one really wants to read about car woes, the outlet to vent might be beneficial for these people.
I think for some people, it is a way to communicate about how wonderful their life is (and only post about that). One girl I went to high school with, who was student council president and 2nd to the valedictorian is always gloating about how her dad bought her a BMW, her research at Hopkins, etc. It's probably these types of "friends" most have (and most would be envious of) that probably aren't a person's real friend. I have since deleted her from facebook because I realized I just didn't care about what was going on in her life.
And then there are those who simply broadcast what they are doing. "Eating chicken" "Watching T.V." "Playing Scrabble" "Drinking beer".
All of these examples are pulled from, again, my college aged "friends." Older adults, such as older family friends, my mom, etc. tend to post about their children, things happening in the news, etc. So, it definitely would be interesting to do a study on age and demographics.
@ Liz, sounds like a potentially interesting group final project.
ReplyDelete