February birthdays
07/02/14 05:15
February is a month of birthdays in our family. I have a nephew whose birthday is today. My wife’s birthday is tomorrow. Our grandson’s birthday is Sunday. And there are other birthdays this month. It is fun the way that birthdays sometimes cluster in groups and in our family that means that we sometimes can get together to celebrate more than one occasion.
February is also the birthday of Facebook. I don’t know the exact day that the social media network first went online, but it was started in February of 2004, which means that it is 10 years old this month. It started in a Harvard University dorm room and was initially open only to Harvard students, but soon expanded to other colleges in the Boston area and then expanded to other universities, corporations and within a couple of years it was available to everyone over 13 with a valid email address. Of course, it was soon evident that a few who were under 13 simply lied about their age to log on. The Internet is still filled with people who create identities that are distinct and different from reality. It is a place to pretend for some people and knowing who is pretending and who is not is a bit of a challenge. When I first became involved with Facebook, I noted several people I knew who were in their teens appeared on Facebook in their 20’s. Some of them reported relationships on Facebook that didn’t seem to exist in their life outside of the social media. Whether you call it play acting or having fun or lying the bottom line is that you can’t trust Facebook to be telling the whole story.
As the phenomenon spread, making its founders rich beyond their wildest imaginations, I began to receive “friend” requests from people I had never met. It was obvious that some people were trying to collect incredibly large numbers of Facebook friends for whatever reasons I do not know. I soon found the site to require more time than I was willing to give it. I make a few automated posts to the site and allow it to remind me of friends’ birthdays. I also use the site to read about some of my relatives who are less than disciplined about keeping in touch with family. But I don’t spend much time on the site. I try to make sure that people know that it isn’t a good way to get a message to me because I don’t give it much of my time.
We know, however, that there are some people who are almost constantly on the site. We keep a mental list of the best ways to contact the youth in our youth group. Some respond to text messages but don’t ever check their voice mail. The best way to get a message to some of them is to post it on Facebook. We try to use whatever media works for the individual.
So it was interesting for me to read the summary of a study by psychologists at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor about the relationship between life satisfaction and the amount of time spend on Facebook. The researchers teemed with scientists at a University in Belgium checking to see how lonely people felt, how they felt about life in general and the like. They also checked on Facebook use. The study found a correlation. Basically a low sense of well-being correlated with a lot of Facebook use. “The more people used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time.” Facebook is suppose to increase a sense of connection and enhance well-being, but researchers have some evidence that the opposite may be happening.
I think it has something to do with the difference between the illusion and the reality. Not only does Facebook allow users to assume fictional identities, it forms fictional communities. While a large number of Facebook friends might mean that there are many messages posted on one’s wall. The high activity doesn’t correspond with real human interaction. The posts of some stranger’s vacation photos probably does nothing to make one feel rested. The activities of people who are mostly strangers probably doesn’t hold much interest for the average user.
In the early 1960’s researchers began to observe a similar phenomenon with television. People who watched a lot of television seemed to be less joyful than those who didn’t watch as much. Poet and essayist T S Eliot, then nearing the end of his life, wrote, “It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”
His words proved prophetic as the 20th century gave way to the 21st and technology provided more and more ways for people to have the illusion of connection and networking while remaining isolated.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m no luddite. I invest a lot of energy in technologically-assisted communication. I maintain multiple web sites. I blog every day. I love to Skype with my grandson. I pull out my phone to look up words and send text messages to check on friends. I’m all in favor of the use of devices in ways that help to enhance relationships.
But I am no fan of relationships that exist only in cyberspace. I have no energy to pursue connections with people that I have never met face to face and that I am unlikely to ever get to know in other contexts. This doesn’t mean that those people are somehow less important than others. It just means that I only have a limited amount of energy and I prefer to invest it in people that I can get to know face to face.
So happy birthday Facebook. Congratulations for your success to its founders. But it isn’t one of the big occasions in my life. I far prefer to celebrate the birthdays of people whose eyes I can gaze into and whose conversation captures my attention.
And if I haven’t responded to your friend request, I mean no offense. I just don’t spend much time on Facebook. On the other hand I have a rich and deeply satisfying life and I rarely feel lonely.
February is also the birthday of Facebook. I don’t know the exact day that the social media network first went online, but it was started in February of 2004, which means that it is 10 years old this month. It started in a Harvard University dorm room and was initially open only to Harvard students, but soon expanded to other colleges in the Boston area and then expanded to other universities, corporations and within a couple of years it was available to everyone over 13 with a valid email address. Of course, it was soon evident that a few who were under 13 simply lied about their age to log on. The Internet is still filled with people who create identities that are distinct and different from reality. It is a place to pretend for some people and knowing who is pretending and who is not is a bit of a challenge. When I first became involved with Facebook, I noted several people I knew who were in their teens appeared on Facebook in their 20’s. Some of them reported relationships on Facebook that didn’t seem to exist in their life outside of the social media. Whether you call it play acting or having fun or lying the bottom line is that you can’t trust Facebook to be telling the whole story.
As the phenomenon spread, making its founders rich beyond their wildest imaginations, I began to receive “friend” requests from people I had never met. It was obvious that some people were trying to collect incredibly large numbers of Facebook friends for whatever reasons I do not know. I soon found the site to require more time than I was willing to give it. I make a few automated posts to the site and allow it to remind me of friends’ birthdays. I also use the site to read about some of my relatives who are less than disciplined about keeping in touch with family. But I don’t spend much time on the site. I try to make sure that people know that it isn’t a good way to get a message to me because I don’t give it much of my time.
We know, however, that there are some people who are almost constantly on the site. We keep a mental list of the best ways to contact the youth in our youth group. Some respond to text messages but don’t ever check their voice mail. The best way to get a message to some of them is to post it on Facebook. We try to use whatever media works for the individual.
So it was interesting for me to read the summary of a study by psychologists at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor about the relationship between life satisfaction and the amount of time spend on Facebook. The researchers teemed with scientists at a University in Belgium checking to see how lonely people felt, how they felt about life in general and the like. They also checked on Facebook use. The study found a correlation. Basically a low sense of well-being correlated with a lot of Facebook use. “The more people used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time.” Facebook is suppose to increase a sense of connection and enhance well-being, but researchers have some evidence that the opposite may be happening.
I think it has something to do with the difference between the illusion and the reality. Not only does Facebook allow users to assume fictional identities, it forms fictional communities. While a large number of Facebook friends might mean that there are many messages posted on one’s wall. The high activity doesn’t correspond with real human interaction. The posts of some stranger’s vacation photos probably does nothing to make one feel rested. The activities of people who are mostly strangers probably doesn’t hold much interest for the average user.
In the early 1960’s researchers began to observe a similar phenomenon with television. People who watched a lot of television seemed to be less joyful than those who didn’t watch as much. Poet and essayist T S Eliot, then nearing the end of his life, wrote, “It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”
His words proved prophetic as the 20th century gave way to the 21st and technology provided more and more ways for people to have the illusion of connection and networking while remaining isolated.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m no luddite. I invest a lot of energy in technologically-assisted communication. I maintain multiple web sites. I blog every day. I love to Skype with my grandson. I pull out my phone to look up words and send text messages to check on friends. I’m all in favor of the use of devices in ways that help to enhance relationships.
But I am no fan of relationships that exist only in cyberspace. I have no energy to pursue connections with people that I have never met face to face and that I am unlikely to ever get to know in other contexts. This doesn’t mean that those people are somehow less important than others. It just means that I only have a limited amount of energy and I prefer to invest it in people that I can get to know face to face.
So happy birthday Facebook. Congratulations for your success to its founders. But it isn’t one of the big occasions in my life. I far prefer to celebrate the birthdays of people whose eyes I can gaze into and whose conversation captures my attention.
And if I haven’t responded to your friend request, I mean no offense. I just don’t spend much time on Facebook. On the other hand I have a rich and deeply satisfying life and I rarely feel lonely.