Facebook and Society

We live in a technology dependent environment. Cell phones. MP3 players of all brands, shapes and sizes. GPS systems. Computers, laptops and more, are all part of our daily lives. During my search for materials for this blog post, I probably checked my facebook a dozen times. That is where I got the idea for this entry - Facebook. Though trivial as it may seem, today's society thrives on Facebook. But why? Why are we so obsessed with updating our statuses, keeping up to date with our likes and dislikes and as a whole documenting everything of our day to day lives?

Peggy Orenstein of The New York Times has asked some of the same questions in her article "The Way We Live Now - Growing Up on Facebook." According to her research, there was 276 percent increase (6 million people) in the number of users between the ages of 35-54 during the last months of 2008. Yet the majority of its users, 25 million to be exact, are under the age of 25. The big difference in these two age groups is not just the size in numbers, but the reason in which they use facebook.

For all the discussion Facebook has prompted — over its “25 random things about me” narcissism, its mangled syntax (“Peggy is weekend”), the tricky politics of whom to friend (actual friends? strangers? “kinda knows”?) — its most profound impact may be to alter, even obliterate, conventional notions of the past, to change the way young people become adults.

Another interesting point that Orenstein brought up is the fact that people have literally hundreds of friends on facebook, and yet most of these friends are not really close friends at all. People practically broadcast their day to day lives using facebook and by doing anyone, including acquaintances and even strangers, can know what you’re doing. What I’m trying to conclude with all of this is the fact that our society is becoming increasingly dependent on technology and with that our way of life is also changing. So the next time you log onto facebook, think about the information you’re sharing and who you’re sharing it with. There is a difference between life through a screen and life in the real world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-lede-t.html