Today's discussion on networking made me think about the several positive associations coined with the term "networking". Networking is known as the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions. Networking is often the source of finding a job, a great doctor, a school, a home, etc. For example, you may talk to your friend who knows a friend who is selling their home and then you may have a higher possibility of negotiating a lower price with your friends friend. I personally have experienced the positive benefits of networking. Last summer I received my internship in NYC because the boss was one of my cousins best friends. This summer I am in a similar situation because I am working to receive a job from a friend of the family's. But, the reason I am writing this post is because I am undecided about Facebook. Is Facebook a positive social media networking site? The question remains unanswered.
I think there are many pros and cons to Facebook. I understand that it has been beneficial for people of older generations because it has helped them connect to old friends and family members. But is it beneficial for our generation? I almost think that it hurts us more than it helps us. Students spend countless hours a day on Facebook when they could be doing something more beneficial with their time. It has created a generation of "stalking" and commenting on photos and scrutinizing individual's weight fluctuations. You spend time scrolling through pages of people writing on eachother's walls and posting photos and updating status's. I personally think that it is a major waste of time and it is ruining our generation's capabilities to excel in other fields. Yet every time I deactivate my Facebook I am looked upon as a "weirdo" who should re-activate immediately.
I guess I just don't really see the benefits for our generation. I understand that it is cool that we can look at our home friends pictures of them enjoying college with their new friends and we can keep in touch through Facebook chat. But in reality we can call, text, or e-mail each other to keep in touch. I think it is a great way for people to re-connect that lost touch, but that is not the case for our generation. I actually think it poses many detriments to our generation. Often you hear stories about students not being admitted to college because they had several under age drinking pictures on their Facebook profiles. Many times pictures posted cause drama in friendships and relationships. I just think Facebook is blinding us to what is really important in life. The hours a day that is spent on Facebook is unfathomable. I am slightly hypocritical writing this post because I do have a Facebook profile and I do check it frequently. Yet, at the same time when I try to practice my beliefs and deactivate I am suddenly viewed as an outcast to society. What is the benefit for our generation? I know it is easy to publicize for a club or an upcoming event, but I feel there are other ways that can be done. I am sure there are various other opinions out there.
-Shannon Funsch
I am really undecided about Facebook as well. Yes, I use it multiple times a day and waste countless hours on it. However, if the MAIN focus and attention wasn't on Facebook I think it would definitely be somewhere else (Myspace, LinkedIn, etc). It's almost as if our generation feels the need to multi-task in order to get things done and pass time. I have become so reliant on Facebook when I am bored that I honestly can't imagine what I would do in my free down time.
ReplyDeleteFacebook has also made me extremely anxious. Since it is linked into my phone, I get notifications whenever someone posts on my wall or adds a picture of me. When i get these notifications, i feel the need to rush to a computer and check out what the rest of my 1500 friends can see on my profile. And then there are the layers of friends that we spoke about it in class (friends of friends), and who knows how many of your friend's friends can see your pictures and posts? When you think about it, Facebook is actually pretty scary.
And then I look at my parents' profiles-- they are connecting and posting on their friends' walls that they haven't spoken to in 20 years. This is the positive aspect of Facebook- connecting with old friends and keeping relationships alive. But I feel like this is rarely the case for our generation. Facebook has been used by our generation as a tool to waste time and create a false persona of yourself.
Our generation needs to learn how to use Facebook the RIGHT way-- not just as a distraction or entertainment device. We need to stick to what Facebook's original intention was "to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
- Brooke Kranz
Brooke, I definitely agree with what you have to say about using Facebook the right way. Of course, I am reliant on Facebook too, just as any college student is. However, I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing. Yes, I do think that it can become a distraction and can take away from some "important" aspects of my life. However, I think the benefits of Facebook outweigh the negatives. For example, one of the main ways that I use Facebook is the aspect of "chat". During middle school and high school, I always used iChat to talk to both my friends that I saw at school everyday, and my distant friends, such as camp friends. With this application dying out, Facebook chat has become the alternative. Especially with its integration with Skype, Facebook chat makes it very easy to keep in touch with my friends from home as well as my family.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, Facebook is extremely beneficial to help with the "spread" or something. Think about the Kony video that recently went viral via Facebook. Because people have such big Facebook networks, this video was able to spread across millions of people in just a few days. This is something that I believe has become very important in our society.
Overall, I definitely think that Facebook has become essential to our society today. Whether or not this is entirely a good thing, I think that it is necessary and that if we use it the right way, it will be overall beneficial.
-Emma Kessler
Shannon, I completely agree with you: Facebook is not a beneficial networking site. It has acted as one factor, amongst many, to move our society away from one of personal face-to-face interactions and community. People say "Oh I'm facebook friends with that person," but what does that even mean if they've never actually met them? I've seen "Friends" on Facebook walk by each other on the street, and not acknowledge each other at all. I can't think of any way to describe it except weird.
ReplyDeletePeople waste hours every single day just scrolling through useless information, waiting for notifications, gaining absolutely nothing out of their free yet wasted time. Even the potential to spread information through Facebook doesn't seem beneficial to me. Emma, in the post above me, discusses the KONY video and how quickly it spread through the world because of Facebook; however, people's interest in Kony and Uganda faded as quickly as it spread.
Overall, I'd like to describe Facebook as the most addicting website ever created. Despite realizing this, I waste my time with it every day. While I see several positives to Facebook (such as Brooke's example of her parents connecting with old friends), the negatives absolutely outweigh the positives. The website is so engrained in our society at this point, that the negatives, especially consumer exploitation and the decrease in physical interactions, will get worse.
-Josh Heller
I think that the pro's of Facebook outweigh the negatives. Facebook's chat system is a lot less intrusive than calling someone (since you know when they're online and not busy) and you'll get a much faster response than via email. Without Facebook, that older generation has lost contact with much of their younger friends from high school because they didn't have this type of social media to keep in touch. Now that it exists, people can maintain relationships with their peers much longer, well into their old age!
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you in that Facebook is harmful for our generation. I believe that Facebook has several more positive aspects to Facebook as compared to the negative aspects. Similar to adults, it is an easy way to communicate with older friends, and use it for social, academic, and advertising purposes. Although many teens overuse the social networking site by spending countless hours a day on it distracting from other more important events, it also has many beneficial purposes. In the academic realm, it provides a space in which peers can directly communicate with classmates and friends in order to ask questions or talk either by chat or video chatting to find out important information related to school. Also, Facebook allows you to create groups in which only certain people can be a part of whether for an invitation to an event, or just a space to communicate with friends. This provides several social bonding experiences within our generation.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is definitely an interesting conversation subject for all people in today's society. On one hand, Facebook facilitates relationships and helps us to enhance our already close real-world friendships. On the other hand, Facebook is a tool that replaces relationships in the real world with virtual ones. In one of my Communications classes we had a debate about whether Facebook was a complementary or compensatory tool. If you view Facebook as a complementary tool then you believe that Facebook is simply a way to complement the relationships that you already have in the real world. However, if you believe that Facebook is a compensatory tool, than you believe that Facebook makes up for some lack of relationship in the real world. I believe that Facebook embodies a little bit of both qualities. Although it does help me to enhance my already existing friendships, it also forces me to keep in touch with people who I would not normally speak to. For instance, on Facebook it is a very common social norm to write on people's walls on their birthday, some of which you may not have spoken to in years. Overall, I think that while Facebook definitely does have some positive qualities, it is potentially very detrimental for our generation. For instance, it diminishes face-to-face interaction, encourages stalking rather than talking, and ultimately becomes a huge distraction to a student's main priority: work!
ReplyDelete- Mallory Harwood
The Magic Circle
Shannon,
ReplyDeleteFacebook is can definitely be coined "the networking tool of our generation." Yet whether that denotes a positive or negative connotation is a great question. Many different articles have talked about how youth are posting inappropriate photos and posts on facebook that are ruining their chances of getting into college or getting future jobs. While I think this is a very valid point, it has also caused many people to privatize their facebook so that they can post all they want and not worry about other people seeing it. Yet what are the consequences to this? For one, people are now presenting to personalities: one on facebook and in their social life, and then when at school or in their job. Is this what we really want? It seems rather odd that in society today people have to separate themselves so much. Shouldn't our identity be consistent across situations? I often find myself acting different towards professors and in class than I would towards my friends or when I am out, and a little of bit of that is definitely warranted. However, the issue is how far we are willing to take this separation. While different norms regarding relationships apply when dealing with friends, family, and colleagues, does it become deceptive when we go beyond these norms? Facebook has created a generation of people who are highly skilled deceivers. We are able to have two separate identities and hide them from each respective parts of our lives: our social life and our school/work life. This is definitely a big problem in our society today and facebook feeds right into this issue.
Taylor Rothman
I think there are definitely pros and cons to facebook. Like you said, I could do much better things with my time than "stalking." It's somewhat weird that we know who is in a relationship, where everyone was this past weekend, and if someone looks good in their pictures. Because there are so many possibilities of things you can expose on facebook it has essentially hurt us. We put too much emphasis on how we look in our pictures, and I have to say...its fake.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on the other side, I know my Dad loves facebook. He found his roommate from college who he lost place with, his camp girlfriend, his best friend from middle school, and even gets to see what I'm up to while I'm away at college. It all depends how you use it. It can become very obsessive but I think if you monitor your usage it can also be beneficial.
Shannon I couldn't agree more with what you said. I often think that I am wasting my time on Facebook but then I realize that I am able to keep in touch with camp friends and friends that I met on teen tours that I most likely would have lost touch with. I also am able to advertise for philanthropy events for my sorority via facebook. Although a lot of times I am just "stalking" my friends and wasting my time reading pointless status's I do think that there are many benefits to Facebook!
ReplyDelete