Whither the Individual?
As we join groups and social networks from affinity sites to Facebook, are we extending and expanding identities, or increasingly conforming to the cookie-cutter profiles demanded of these interfaces? Is the loss of "personal space" and "reflection" so many users complain of merely the necessary surrender of "ego" as we learn to participate as members of a more evolved "collective organism" of "hyper-people?"
As many people know, Facebook is the most popular social networking site available right now. With over 500 million users Facebook has taken place of Myspace and AIM. Even though some people say that social media sites make people conform to the “cookie-cutter” profile, I do not agree with that. I believe that people are actually doing the opposite. The Internet is medium, which allows users to say and do whatever they want. It allows people to expand on their identities weather or not they are telling the truth about who they are or what they like. I suppose in a way this can be conforming to a certain type of profile if someone may be posting interests that they believe are “cool” when in fact that it not their personality at all.
In the documentary “Digital Nation”, David Rushkoff and Rachel Dreztin explore different types of media sites such as Second Life, Facebook and Youtube. They are investigating to see weather or not these sites are forcing their users to conform, or be themselves. On a site such as Second Life, people certainly are experimenting with different personalities. People even have Second Life husbands and wives, which is where the use of the Internet gets very odd. Even though Second Life’s purpose was to increase intimacy over the Internet, people take their experimenting of different personalities very far. People use their Avatars to become someone they may not be comfortable with being in the real world.
Even though profiles on Facebook may all have the same layouts, each individual has a chance to customize their own profile by adding pictures, comments, statuses and more. We all know that most of the population is “addicted” to Facebook or even Myspace and Twitter but Facebook is amongst the most popular social media site in the world. People use Facebook for their own personal reasons. One person may have no reason to lie on their profile about their interests whereas someone else may have many different profiles all with different personalities. I do not think that this is Facebook’s fault. Facebook certainly does not make anyone conform to the “cookie-cutter” profile at all, in fact the amount of freedom a lot of the social networking sites gives you, you can do anything you would like with your profiles, without any limits.
This concept of “withering” the individual I believe to be not true. In fact, people are about to expand on their existing identity. Those who complain about the loss of “personal-space” would depend on what they are entering into their profiles. You chose what goes on your profile and you have to be smart enough to not put anything on it that may be invading to your privacy. Anything and everything pertaining to the Internet should be known that is out for the world to see. People should understand that whatever they put on the Internet is public and always will be.
Jonathan Bree
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I believe that facebook is a place where people can be themselves or it can be a place where people stretch the truth in an effort to conform to social norms and be "cool." Users need to filter what they post about themselves or others because the truth of the matter is, if it is on the web, someone is going to find it. Overall, I agree that facebook and other web profiles are mostly beneficial to todays fast paced, electronic happy world we live in where multitasking has become the norm.
While Facebook does offer us the ability to create unique pages I think many people pass up this opportunity. The individual may put or her own personality on the page, but in the endall content follows a general theme consistant with the majority. Photo journals are filled with different people making the same pose. The opportunity for indiviuality exists, but few take the offer.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what Jess said and we share many of the same ideologies when it comes to social media. Social networking sites such as facebook give the individual a lot of room to utilize their creativity in terms of pictures and the information that they share. However, I do wonder if one day facebook will allow its users complete control over the look of their profile instead of one standard design. That is an enticing idea, but the generic facebook look is what makes it so recognizable and in this day and age that is critical for long term success. I also found the video footage about Second Life to be very intriguing in the sense that people take their alternate lives very seriously. It’s sometimes scary the extent to which people go with these types of websites. I guess it gives people the opportunity to explore and engage in activities that they wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in real life. It is all fun and games until people get hurt though; the video highlighted infidelity other concerns that these mediums involve. In the end, I feel like me and Jess share many of the same opinions in the sense that the individual is not withering, but rather it is thriving. Social networking and all the new forms of social media tools that weren’t around in the past give people an opportunity to extend themselves. People can extend themselves in many different aspects with the use of different mediums. They can befriend long-distance friends due to facebook, hold meetings from across the globe with second life and there are many other examples of such activities.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with Jonathan, Facebook is definitely a place where individuals can truly be themselves, lie about who they are, or stretch the truth about their identity in order to fit in with society, and make an effort to comply with social norms. Facebook is the most popular social networking sites, and yes can be beneficial to todays world of technology, and staying connected with friends, but Facebook can have its downsides as well. The general public agrees that Facebook has many more pros then cons and i have to agree with that.
ReplyDeleteI think that Jess raised many interesting points about social network sites and identity expansion. She notes that we are not forced to conform to cookie cutter profiles because there are so many different things we can do with them. Also, even though Second Life has a few different sides to it, people making false identities is definitely a major issue with the game. Therefore, we are not limiting our identities but we are expanding them in new ways.
ReplyDeleteHaving the ability to edit, comment, add content and redesign your facebook page gives you the power to avoid the cookie cutter appearance. I do think Second Life has the potential to be little bit extreme. People can become immersed in the false reality it provides and the user can loose their first life. I like that it provides a vehicle for people to interact and communicate without being within a close proximity. My main problem with it is that people may begin to forget about the necessity to physically interact with other people. Human contact is so important to maintaining our humanity, we cannot lose this by immersing ourselves in technology.
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