Electronic Community

The argument: In an age when commercial advertisements and social networking sites remind us daily of our need to be more connected to each other, I believe, and have for quite some time now, that electronic communication and social-networking sites are creating bad social habits and ruining our understanding of community (what we reveal and what we expect). I will divide this argument into two posts. In this post I will briefly address the use of cell phones, and I will discuss some negative side of social networking sites.

First, let me say this. I know firsthand that having my Blackberry (with its e-mail and internet) is convenient and helpful; I admit I mildly enjoy posting silly Facebook statuses (like AIM away messages) for people to see; and I know Gmail-chat/video and other “connecting” technological advances are excellent ways to stay in touch with one’s family and friends. In other words, I'm not Kathy Bates in "Waterboy" arguing that technology or electronic communication, like foosball or Benjamin Franklin, are the Devil. I simply think we have to question our use and abuse of electronic communication and social networking sites, that’s it.

What originally sparked the idea for this post was my disdain for Twitter (i.e. Satan). Five months ago you would’ve thought Twitter was a new dance, sort of like the Stanky Leg (YouTube it when you can), but it’s everywhere now, and it, along with Facebook, is continuously changing what people do with their time and how they interact with other people in a virtual world. But before I can even discuss social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, I’d like to briefly discuss a device we all use – the cell phone.

As stated a moment ago, I appreciate the convenience of cell phones. It makes my life easier, that’s for sure. The problem is not cell phones, though, but how we let them (and the features that come with them – text messaging, internet, e-mail, etc.) distort how we go about as embodied people, particularly how they take priority over the people who immediately surround us sometimes. I know I’m guilty of doing this, ignoring my friends for the sake of a text message or a CNN browse, and if you don’t share my guilt you’ve at least witnessed similar situations. We’ve all seen the group of friends “hanging together” but all on the phone with someone not with them. We’ve been behind the man or woman in the grocery line, so involved in a conversation or text message that he or she barely acknowledges the person bagging the groceries. Or we’ve watched a friend neglect the group conversation for minutes on end to peruse Facebook or Twitter on their Blackberries or iPhones, with us bodily but not present mentally. We treat cell phones like people, and we treat people like products. Brian alluded to this behavior in his discussion of high school teenagers, but the problem is not just a teenage issue, but one we adults need to address. While we embrace the new technological landscape and all the convenience it offers, it calls for a new etiquette – one that doesn't seem to be in place yet, one that makes people around us a greater priority than our need to be connected to our cell phones at all times.

Moving on.

Social networking sites are the Devil…

Well, not exactly, but there’s some odd stuff taking place.

You’ve experienced it before. You click on your friends’ status updates, scroll through a few funny ones – “Clayton Greene never filters” or “Brian Turney is not bathing this week” – only to come across one that says “I feel so lost, alone, and I want to die” or “Why did my girlfriend have to break my heart into little, bitty pieces.” If you know the person at all it might cross your mind to send them a message or write something encouraging, for lack of a better word, on their wall. Usually, though, you ignore it, and you keep scrolling down your friends list until you see another status to giggle at, perhaps one that says, “Billy Hoffman breaks hearts like Chuck Norris breaks knees.”

The main concern isn’t necessarily one’s reaction to people’s heart-wrenching status updates (though we will get to that), but what it says about a culture that makes it acceptable for one to express one’s emotional anguish to “friends” via the internet, people they may have met once or barely talk to anymore. In real life, I wouldn’t normally tell Joe who sits beside me in New Testament the pain I feel from my breakup. Hell, I barely know his last name. And I wouldn’t walk into a room of strangers and blurt out my fears, frustrations, and life concerns for all to hear. That’d be too much information – in real life. Somehow, though, because we feel a connection to our electronic social networks and have tons of “friends” on Facebook and Twitter, respectively, we think it appropriate to say whatever we want and whenever we want, with little regard to filtering or questioning our online confession tendencies. We let go of our inhibitions, those that usually tell us, “Hey, you should probably only tell this to your close friends who care,” and we let loose like a drunk frat boy at a tailgate party. But why would we restrain ourselves? After all, we get to vent publicly (proving how transparent we are, right?) and in turn we get an “I like this” on our Facebook walls. We let our electronic community know our business, though they may know very little about our life or our situation, and in the process we seek comfort in the internet before the people we see and talk to regularly. (Note: this may be a far-fetched idea for us, but I think it's true for lots of people, especially teenagers who've never known a world without cell phones, internet, etc.)

This isn't to say one can’t read a Facebook or Twitter status, have sympathy, and actually make a difference. A few weeks ago, for instance, Demi Moore helped stop a woman from killing herself, a woman who expressed her desire to commit suicide via a Twitter tweet. While I applaud Moore for taking the time to alert authorities, again, one wonders what sort of society we’ve created when someone feels more comfortable expressing suicidal thoughts to a Hollywood celebrity – in 140 characters or less – rather than one’s neighbor, coworker, or the mailman. A recent study by the University of Southern California, though, revealed that perhaps even Moore’s Twitter-compassion might eventually stop. According to the study, getting updates via Twitter (and Facebook) could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering. The findings show that the “streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain’s ‘moral compass’ to process and could harm young people’s emotional development.” Researcher Mary Helen Yang said, “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experiences emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for morality.” In other words, Twitter will eventually lead to cold, immoral, heartless people. Watch out.

Those are the main thoughts for now. I'm sure I've generalized and haven't added quite enough points, but if there are response we can work on it. In the next post I will discuss how Twitter and Facebook, like cell phones, create an environment that makes it difficult for us to ever be alone, and how we must always be in the know, even if it’s reading someone's one-line Twitter update.