View Full Version : Social networking...shallow connections?
It would be interesting to find out your opinions on this subject. :)
Do you think virtual relationships are taking over from real life relationships?
Do you think the virtual world alienates people from one another?
Social networking seems to create a false illusion of intimacy with people that are in actual fact not very close to you at all in the real world. Surely it's far more productive to network face to face with people? What is going to happen to the oldest method of communication? People now seem to be more comfortable communicating with 'friends' via the internet than they do with making face-to-face conversations with other people.
I personally find it a bit sad. Curious to know what others think about this?
In many ways it is more productive to converse face to face, but it can also be detrimental. People with poor social skills, or people with certain traits or disabilities may be held back in the "real world", but may flourish online.
Some people like being anonymous online. I'm sure there's many on this forum who would not hold such strong views in public.
I've had "friend" invites on social networking sites from people I've met in the passing or seen only once. In that case, maybe it is a bit sad, but "collecting friends" is perhaps the modern equivalent of having a large stamp collection. Each to their own.
As for close relationships, building friendships and loves with people you've never met, I don't know. I'm sure it's worked for many but imagine it's got a large failure rate when people meet in person.
It would be interesting to find out your opinions on this subject. :)
Do you think virtual relationships are taking over from real life relationships?
Do you think the virtual world alienates people from one another?
Social networking seems to create a false illusion of intimacy with people that are in actual fact not very close to you at all in the real world. Surely it's far more productive to network face to face with people? What is going to happen to the oldest method of communication? People now seem to be more comfortable communicating with 'friends' via the internet than they do with making face-to-face conversations with other people.
I personally find it a bit sad. Curious to know what others think about this?
Interesting that you should ask this question on a public forum. Would this question not be better asked within a group of people Face to Face rather than in the virtual world that you seem to not like. Perhaps you yourself are more comfortable communicating with people via the internet rather than face to face.
This site might not be classed a social networking but in its own way it is a social site and as such the very thing you are against, ie not the real world.
changilass
05-Jan-11, 13:32
Out of 71 contacts on facebook, over 60 of them are relatives or close friends, the others are people who I talk to regularly on here or on another forum (most of who I have met), so I would hardly call them 'shallow contacts'.
I love being able to talk to and see recent pics of relatives all round the world, living this far north also means that face to face contact with relatives in the UK isn't an everyday occurance.
Don't get me wrong, I love talking to them on the phone too, and visits to them are something special to be treasured.
Yesterday, i took a look at my Facebook friends list, and realised that with many of them, there has been zero online interaction, and even if i met them in the pub, i wouldn't strike up a conversation with them, there would be nothing more than a hello. So i had a massive cull of my friends list and got rid of around 50 of them.
onecalledk
05-Jan-11, 14:17
Interesting thread, I think it may depend how old you are as well. I worked with a young girl girl in her twenties a few years ago that was whizz at social networking ,emailing, texting etc at amazing speed but ask her to meet a friend in a pub and it was terrifying for her. She seemed to like the idea of the social interactions but struggled when faced with the actual real person in front of her. Her friends also seemed to be the same. I met a few of them and they were a good deal different than they had appeared "virtually".
Personally meeting the person and actually seeing and talking with them wins everytime, a social get together with friends/family is just grand but it did make me question how society will develop if our teenagers and twenty somethings find it hard to interact in real life. Society is getting more and more geared to technology and this of course will be embraced by the younger generation but perhaps something should be done to encourage real life social situations for them. If they are a bit nervous and shy anyway then interacting virtually will only make this stronger, they will then perhaps think that they cannot live up to the personna they may have created and then fear the actual interaction in the real world all the more.
Perhaps thats why communication seems to be breaking down across human society in general. We tend not to have time to meet with people, easier to text or to send an email. My sister loves getting actual mail, with handwriting, not some electronic page with some typed words on it. I would like to thing that technology has not killed human interaction but evidence seems to point to this.
Human beings are by their very nature "socially" orientated. We are not designed to live cut off from others, that would start a form of madness surely, you do hear of people sailing round the world all by themselves and losing the plot. Technology divides as much as it appears to bring people together.
I would say the older generations are aware of this trend but I do worry about the younger generations and what they are being exposed to. Technology has not really made the world safer , although it appears to have made the world smaller but if we had a huge power cut across the world tomorrow that lasted for 24hours what would we all do ? My guess is that the older generations would get out their playing cards/knitting needles/ books/candles and the younger generations would start screaming that they were bored and had nothing to do !!!!
K
Interesting that you should ask this question on a public forum. Would this question not be better asked within a group of people Face to Face rather than in the virtual world that you seem to not like. Perhaps you yourself are more comfortable communicating with people via the internet rather than face to face.
This site might not be classed a social networking but in its own way it is a social site and as such the very thing you are against, ie not the real world.
Well firstly, the fact that this is a public forum is precisely the reason why I used it to ask this question; it is aimed largely at internet users, and a public forum is a very appropriate place to ask it.
I also object to your assumption that I have not already asked the same question "within a group of people Face to Face" as you put it, prior to asking it via the internet.
I do not recall asking for anyone's opinion on my own personal preferences with regards to methods of communication; if you wish to reply to my questions then please make sure you understand what it is I am asking, and reply accordingly. However, as it so happens I am very comfortable interacting with people and I prefer to communicate face-to-face over any other method, including the internet.
I also never stated, or indeed even implied, that I am totally "against" social networking. I believe the only negative comment I made on the matter was that I find it "a bit sad" that this form of communicating seems to be taking precedence over actually getting out into the real world and forming social connections in the traditional manner.
I must agree with your comment that usage of this forum can hardly be classed as social networking, and you must surely see the logic in using a public forum to ask a question of this nature.
...
Personally meeting the person and actually seeing and talking with them wins everytime, a social get together with friends/family is just grand but it did make me question how society will develop if our teenagers and twenty somethings find it hard to interact in real life. Society is getting more and more geared to technology and this of course will be embraced by the younger generation but perhaps something should be done to encourage real life social situations for them. If they are a bit nervous and shy anyway then interacting virtually will only make this stronger, they will then perhaps think that they cannot live up to the personna they may have created and then fear the actual interaction in the real world all the more.
Perhaps thats why communication seems to be breaking down across human society in general. We tend not to have time to meet with people, easier to text or to send an email. My sister loves getting actual mail, with handwriting, not some electronic page with some typed words on it. I would like to thing that technology has not killed human interaction but evidence seems to point to this.
I agree. Considering how much technology has developed within the last 30 years - and not always in a negative way - these social networking sites along with email and texts are now one of the reasons research has shown why there are so many single people ... as you mention, people don't know how to communicate face to face anymore.
It starts with the kids spending hours playing playstation or games online etc. and not playing with each other outside anymore.
And I think it makes people lonely to so it's a kind of vicious circle of networking online, then meeting someone face to face and not knowing how to communicate and therefore - being / getting disappointed - going back to social networking even more ....
I had lots of so-called friends on Facebook, mostly due to playing games such as FarmVille etc.
When I realised that I spent too much time playing these games - the higher you get with the level the more friends you need and the more time you spend - I quit playing and 'deleted' the game friends.
Now I only are friends with people that have been recommended by friends due to a same interest, those I have met in person, know for quite some time but cannot meet anymore or not as often as I would like due to distance and to keep in touch.
The Drunken Duck
05-Jan-11, 20:39
I have 11 friends on Facebook, mostly realtives although there is an Orger or two in there (you know who you are), I only add people I like and for that I must know them. I barely look at it though, maybe once every couple of days. I have had loads of friend requests from "people who know people I know" but I just bin them. Having eleventy squillion friends in cyberspace just doesnt rock my boat.
I also had my mobile break recently, I decided not to replace it. I have e-mail and a house phone with answer machine. A mobile sometimes is like an electronic noose, you can never really escape. I hated having to reply to every text right away and such. Now I find my mates come to visit me and vice versa to chat. I actually see them a lot more, and I saved a bit of cash.
But I think squeak has raised a good point, adults and even kids today are wrapped up in mobiles, iphones, games consoles, e mail etc etc. Now it might be seen as a bit "old skool" but as I kid I remember having to go see my friends. The idea of sitting in the house communicating with them through a handset or computer would have been ludicrous. We would have just stared and said "Why cant I just go see them ??", I cant remember the last time I saw kids in my area outside playing. Even in summer the football pitches are empty.
Saw this tonight http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344281/Facebook-suicide-None-Simone-Backs-1-048-online-friends-helped-her.html
This would appear to back up the points made by others. Very sad story, do these people have no compassion or do they just lose it whilst online?
I've resisted using Facebook- the 'friends' element of it can be open to abuse. I do however use skype- which allows me to communicate with relatives on the other side of the planet, and lets me have long chats with my friends across the country in a away that phone calls alone simply don't allow.
However, I can see that we do depend too much on virtual communication while the world outside becomes an increasingly dangerous place. Reminds me of the Ray Bradbury story where only one pedestrian is left in the planet. Think he might have possessed a crystal ball?
onecalledk
06-Jan-11, 13:47
Saw this tonight http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344281/Facebook-suicide-None-Simone-Backs-1-048-online-friends-helped-her.html
This would appear to back up the points made by others. Very sad story, do these people have no compassion or do they just lose it whilst online?
Its the desensitisation (sp) that playing increasingly violent video games coupled with less actual socialisation that leads to things like this IMHO. If a teenager is sitting playing online games that involve the mass destruction of everything on the screen then to a certain extent they will become numb to what they do. Facebook is akin to a game for many of the young people today, its just like another video game where they can be who they want to be and say and do as they wish but they dont neccessarily ever have to meet up in person. There is a degree of disengagement from the whole thing.
There was an article recently in one of the papers about a US soldier who committed an appauling crime against an Iraqui teenager and then murdered her and her family. He blamed the training that he got from the US army and the fact that war had to a certain degree desensitised him from those around him. Prior to murdering the family he had seen his fellow soldiers blown up right in front of him. He maintains that now he has had time to reflect he is horrified by what he has done but at the time said he could not see the family involved as HUMAN BEINGS. He was trained to kill and that is what he did.
This is an extreme example of what happens though if someone is repeatedly exposed to violence and horror, they will become numb. Whilst I am not saying that every teenager out there is numb to everything around them to a certain degree some ARE. The article quoted about the lady committing suicide would point to those "friends" not fully understanding or connecting to what she did. It was like an online game, unfortunately in the real world people dont just stand up again and the game goes on.....
The level of violence in a lot of games and even films is on the increase, couple that with human beings beginning to lack socialisation skills and you get a very scary combination indeed. Thats why it is so important to maintain social skills and to interact with others. Technology is numbing society. We now live in an instant society where everything is expected yesterday, in a way we are being dehumanised .......
K
You make some good points but I think the opposite will be the case. I think humans will learn to co-exist with their digital world and use it to their advantage. It's happening now.
What happened with that poor women on facebook is very sad.
Most ordinary people, myself included would never know what desensitisation was if it wasnt for the internet. Its a fantastic medium for socialising although I rarely use facebook.
Its the desensitisation (sp) that playing increasingly violent video games coupled with less actual socialisation that leads to things like this IMHO. If a teenager is sitting playing online games that involve the mass destruction of everything on the screen then to a certain extent they will become numb to what they do. Facebook is akin to a game for many of the young people today, its just like another video game where they can be who they want to be and say and do as they wish but they dont neccessarily ever have to meet up in person. There is a degree of disengagement from the whole thing.
There was an article recently in one of the papers about a US soldier who committed an appauling crime against an Iraqui teenager and then murdered her and her family. He blamed the training that he got from the US army and the fact that war had to a certain degree desensitised him from those around him. Prior to murdering the family he had seen his fellow soldiers blown up right in front of him. He maintains that now he has had time to reflect he is horrified by what he has done but at the time said he could not see the family involved as HUMAN BEINGS. He was trained to kill and that is what he did.
This is an extreme example of what happens though if someone is repeatedly exposed to violence and horror, they will become numb. Whilst I am not saying that every teenager out there is numb to everything around them to a certain degree some ARE. The article quoted about the lady committing suicide would point to those "friends" not fully understanding or connecting to what she did. It was like an online game, unfortunately in the real world people dont just stand up again and the game goes on.....
The level of violence in a lot of games and even films is on the increase, couple that with human beings beginning to lack socialisation skills and you get a very scary combination indeed. Thats why it is so important to maintain social skills and to interact with others. Technology is numbing society. We now live in an instant society where everything is expected yesterday, in a way we are being dehumanised .......
K
Yeah, because suicide and a violent society are a new fangled phenomenon :rolleyes:
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