I extracted an article from TIME magazine, dated 28 Sept 2009 that says that facebook users have expanded their age range to even 40s and 50s, and that they use the facebook platform to search for long lost friends and lovers.
(do click on the following pictures to enlarge it and read! 
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They even coined a term “retrosexuals” within the article, for people who are taking the plunge into recycled love. The article relates many incidents of users who have searched and texted their summer school flings with variable results.
As I read this article, it indeed shows that Facebook is not just about pop culture, but it is just culture in itself, in a sense that our lives have revolved around Facebook for most us, somewhat or another.
Myspace, Facebook, friendster, all these social networks that are rather apparent these days, are these introducing the culture of Stalking, and what context culture are these sites relying upon?
As mentioned in the article, Facebook provides a way for people to reach out to someone without fear of rejection. Isn’t this in a sense sussing out someone you’re interested in or just knowing more about the person without them realising what you are doing?
Social Network sites are an open book to anyone’s lives. People can and would put in whatever information they feel interested in writing. Parents all around the world are rather worried about these as they are afraid their offspring might not be able to limit what they want to post online.
With their advertising that says “a networking site where you can share information and link up friends”, it stimulates our minds to learn a pattern of thinking, feeling & action.
Social Networking sites also have a choice of being high context in culture, in a sense that there are many methods in which one can convey a particular message or feeling (Low context is imminent through chat windows and messenging). (The use of the ‘poke’ function (where a user can just send an non-literal poke to catch the receiver’s attention) conveys interest in another. Or tagging someone (labelling and linking a persons profile onto a particular photo) in an image would mean that the user is trying to show association between another user and that photo. Various other applications and quizzes within facebook have contextual cues that stimulates users to interprete messages in their own style.
Many of us base our lives on facebook. I, for one won’t deny that I am a facebook junkie. My status page is updated every half hour through my mobile phone connection. My photos are extremely up to date and I would rather write on someone’s wall rather than dropping him/her a text message. My life is rather dependent so much that during lesson breaks, I would be logging onto facebook to see what my friends are up to.
Although this is not a hindrance, I do wonder what life would be without facebook, maybe I’ll go ask the application Mystic Megg for my predictions and various horoscopes.
October 18, 2009 at 3:18 pm |
The rise of social networking sites is indeed fascinating and does piques our curiosity, especially as communication students.
agreed that new cultures are being born as these sites overtake our lives (some more than others), but i guess you could go a little further to question what sort of changes this phenomenon induces in the psychology and physiology in people. what has fundamentally changed? how is their lifestyle changed? what is being done to accommodate this new lifestyle?
for me, these are interesting questions to ask when a new social phenomenon happens.
PS: you might want to be careful about putting up scanned pages of publications.
October 19, 2009 at 3:24 pm |
Social networking sites certainly have added new dimensions into making new friends all from the comfort of one’s home.
I believe that if we get hooked or too dependent on Social Networking tools like Facebook or friendster, we end up losing the human touch, and this could possibly affect face-to-face communication because we’re no longer accustomed to talking to that girl or guy we’re interested in in the flesh. Studies should be conducted on people who are heavily dependent on social networking and it’s effects on their interpersonal communication whilst they are offline.
October 27, 2009 at 1:31 pm |
Very interesting point there. I’ve actually known of a few friends while in the states whoever ‘rekindled’ lost flames in time through the usage of facebook, and found it rather amusing. But intrinsically, when taken apart, one cannot help but realize, that it actually is extremely terrifying to know, that there is a server online, which holds the information, photos, videos, practically anything, about over 800 million people in the world. And if this server is ever to be breached, there would be a person/organization, who holds more information about anyone, than any government in the whole world. Truly, a terrifying thought.
October 27, 2009 at 1:36 pm |
Many of us born in the 1980s are experiencing social connectivity beyond what we could have never comprehended back in the 1990s, with the advent of facebook, long lost relationships can be re-kindled and there is a boon to us who are searching for that long lost primary school buddy or even that elusive kindergarten mate. Social networking sites can also propagate the spread of social media, current events, or events that just happened can be instantaneously disseminated throughout personal social networks and that effect is almost immediate.
Social media is also a very cost effective way of reaching mass audiences.
October 29, 2009 at 5:15 am |
i agree with the stalking issue with facebook. sometimes, it’ll be out of habit to want to find out about the person’s life, but you do not wish to talk to him/her. so what do u do, use facebook! haha, that’s provided both of you are ‘friends’ in the first place and you’re not in his/her ‘limited profile’ list. for the shy guy that wants to ask a girl out, such social networking sites can actually ease their nervousness.
November 4, 2009 at 2:04 pm |
Facebook is indeed an addictive new media platform that most people would use. Not just to young people, but to older people as well! They use it to find their long lost friends or just to socialise.
Although I too, am kind of addicted to facebook, I wouldn’t say that facebook is all that great. Social Dangers. Unless you make your account private, others can see or find you. What’s worse is when personal photos are uploaded. I had a friend whose photos that were only uploaded on facebook got pirated to a website which shows pornography and she wouldn’t have found out if not because the website popped out on her windows randomly when she was surfing the net.
Also, I believe you would agree that many use facebook to stalk the lives of their ex-es. This, I got from the recent newspapers, probably about a month or two ago. Facebook actually worsens this psychological effect.
Comment on mine!
Kai Ting
http://commmediadiscourse.wordpress.com
November 5, 2009 at 4:21 pm |
i would agree that you’re a facebook junkie!
haha but with technology improving nowadays, getting connected with the net is so fast and easy that EVERYONE would be addicted to facebook too!
as kai ting have mentioned in her comment, people are also able to use facebook to stalk people whom they ‘love’ or ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. that is scary.
however, i feel that with facebook improving, people might not want to meet face to face or even make a call. this would not have any personal effect to communication, because i prefer face to face communication over communication over a computer screen.
November 6, 2009 at 7:58 am |
EH EH EH NOTHING ELSE I CAN SAY
Facebook is sure becoming a dominant part of our lives. It’s not that all scary, come to think of it. It’s just another aspect in which we all keep in touch. Pros ans cons are evident, but then again with all that addiction (and stupid applications which I’m now slowly blocking), Facebook still manages to serve up quite a lot of benefits aka hooking up with your ex-lovers (although it might not reflect that positively on your profile HAHA)
November 6, 2009 at 8:37 am |
The internet really has open up ways of communication. Facebook is just one of the powerful and useful tools around.
Sometimes being able to link to people is good but sometimes, if you have not bothered contacting or keeping in contact with people for so long, why even bother now ???
Just my 2 cents worth of thoughts heh.
November 6, 2009 at 3:45 pm |
I believe the threat of being stalked through facebook is unavoidable. The same is apparent in other sites as well and not just limited to Facebook. It may be true that users can limit the number of people who can actually view their profiles, but with the internet growing every minute, the privacy of every net user is compromised. In fact, i believe the onus should be on the user himself to refrain from uploading sensitive pictures or information that he does not want others to know of.
November 6, 2009 at 4:55 pm |
I think social networking sites like facebook has enhanced and destroyed our social lives!
Think about it, how many people go out with friends, taking pictures and the like just SOOO they can post the pictures up on facebook! I’m sure many people do so. It’s almost an unsaid underlying feeling that many people have succumbed to. I think we have lost the real reason why we meet up with friends!
And debbie, I don’t think hooking up with an ex-lover is a benefit haha! If a relationship didn’t work the first time, the chances of it working on the second try isn’t very high! At least I feel that way!
November 6, 2009 at 5:25 pm |
HAHAHA OMG! this is sooo true. OUR LIVES REVOLVES AROUND THESE SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES so much so that the first thing many of us do in the morning ( well, apart from washing up ) is to switch on our computers and log onto these websties to see what’s new. haha ! but thanks to these networking website, it makes keeping in contact with people much easier, ESPECIALLY WITH THOSE PEOPLE LIVING ABROAD! imagine a life without all these sites, omg. i think long distance friendships and relationships would all crumble and die. so yessss!
on a side note, do you know that there are ways to track down portions of information which people have privatised? so well, we find that it is not all that private anymore , isn’t it ?
November 6, 2009 at 5:30 pm |
mmmhmmmm!
*snaps fingers.
letcheme tell you that social networking sites should be used to enhance and maintain EXISTING RELATIONSHIPS! not create ones out of thin air! I recall the paradox of accepting online relationships as real ones…and that would mean that there is a human behind those words and ‘pokes.’
Letcheme say that a relationship we bear as humans should eventually be ‘human’, something real, something alive. We see a handphone as a social networking tool, so should we see facebook and ‘friends’ a.k.a. twitter blogs… as that! If we let such devices and applications hinder instead of complement our communication, then we are as good as binary data.
November 6, 2009 at 8:04 pm |
Yes yes! You are definitely a facebook junkie. I would see you logging in to facebook during lessons just to see what your other friends are up to.
Anyway, I think that it really boils down to the individuals as they are the only ones who can help themselves. The individual has the only power to consciously decide whether or not to go to the website. With that said, I do agree that the society now is gearing towards a computer to computer communication era.
November 7, 2009 at 10:31 am |
Hey Isaac!
Nice topic because facebook sure is something that most of us youths can relate too!
I do not really understand the point you raised about social networking sites being high context in culture though. By that, do you mean that people are individualistic and thus, the high contect culture there?
Anyway, I agree with you that you are one hell of a facebook junkie! Hahahaha
November 7, 2009 at 6:12 pm |
Hi Isaac!
Facebook has indeed taken over most of our lives as it is the first thing we log into when we turn on the computer. I for one check it whenever I am online. However, I think I am not as extreme as you and can live without it for a day or two.
I do agree with your point that Facebook has become such a big part of most people’s lives that it has created it’s own culture. For example, Facebook has certain jargons that only people who use Facebook would know such as tag, poke and throw a cow. I think the popularity of Facebook is partly due to it’s variety of activities people can engage in besides networking. Games and videos are known to take up large amounts of time for some people who use Facebook.
However, like you said, Facebook may have lead to a form of voyeurism that people participate in but are unaware of. Especially since Facebook does not have the option of viewing who viewed your profile like Friendster does, people feel more liberated to “stalk”(ahem) whoever they want!