In Chapter 5 of The Virtual Community by Howard Rheingold, he states: "Our attempts to analyze the second-level impactsof phenomena like MUDs on our real-life relationships and communities lead to fundamental questions about social values in an age when so many human relationships are mediated by communications technology." He continues by explaining many react with questions such as "what is the matter with these people?" and "don't they have lives?"
Wait, what's the matter with me? Don't I have a life? I admit that I am addicted to MySpace and Facebook. I have to go on them everyday. I wonder if this is hindering my real-life relationships. Should I be interacting with people in real-life rather than on these social sites?
Are we not living our lives like we did pre-social networking? Is living this way the new norm? I'm going to test myself. No MySpace for a week (I have to go on Facebook because of school... I'll try my best to only use it for school purposes). I'll observe if I interact with others more. I'll keep you posted.
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4 comments:
I'm jealous that you have the time to interact with people f2f. :-)
Honestly, if I didn't have Facebook and Myspace, I would lose touch with many people who do not live near me or people with whom I simply do not have the RL time to spend. In general, if I don't see somebody at school, I don't see them in RL. :-( That's just the way my life is right now.
There are also many people who I wouldn't know if it weren't for Facebook or Myspace. I've made several friends who were friends of friends (lol), and I've been reconnected to others with whom I'd lost touch thanks to social networking.
It's funny that you asked, "Don't I have a life?" because that's what I have to keep telling people - that I do have a life outside of Myspace and Facebook. I'm always told I'm a bad "friend" - why? because I don't spend enough time on Myspace and Facebook. I respond by stating how I do have a life (a very busy, hectic one) outside of the virtual world. So should that make me a bad "friend?" I don't think so. Whatever happened to picking up the phone? People don't even do that anymore - they text.
lol...that ought to be hard for you. Like Rebecca said my Myspace is how I keep in touch. It's not like I'm addicted to the sites, I use them like I'd use my cell phone. Now, something I'm addicted to is my Sims games all 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 7, 8 of them. Yea, see it's that bad. =)
Relax, you're living your life how you need to right now. You'll probably go through cycles where you'll do all your interaction with people a certain way, phone, f2f, online and then back round again. It all depends whats going on in your life.
I went through the phone period when the only way I could keep in contact with people was through phone calls. Then it was all 2f2, then back to the phone, then online, then back to phone, now I seem to have a blend between them all, but each way of comminiucating is done differently depending on the tech level of the person.
I have a friend who lives 3 blocks away from me. She has no computer. Every time I ask her where her phone is, she can't find it, or she lent it to her daughter. So I go to her house once a week to talk & visit.
My mom, while she only lives across town and she does go online alot, I communicate with her over the phone mostly. It just works better for us.
Then there are the people who have really busy schedules like me and use email and IM to communicate.
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