That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
The other week, feeling a tad lazy, I took the number four bus into town. Whilst on the bus, I was granted the pleasant opportunity of having two rather loud female students sat in front of me.
Throughout the journey these two females discussed Facebook, and various Facebook related topics such as: the number of Facebook friends they have, how many pictures they have been tagged in, and Facebook status updates. About five minutes into this conversation, one of the girls said to the other, “Did you know Rachael has only got 280 Facebook friends”? In response, her friend said, “I just don’t think she’s that well liked”.
After enduring another ten minutes or so of this conversation, I heard them discuss Fraping, poking (I’m not exactly sure what this is), and the exchanging of gifts, which, according to the laws of physics, must surely not be possible in cyberspace!
This obsession with Facebook is something I have observed frequently since arriving at York University in 2008.
So why is Facebook so popular amongst the student population and young people in general? There is no doubt Facebook has its uses, such as obtaining information for events, keeping in touch with friends on different continents, and sharing pictures with peers but it can lead to so many issues. My problem is not with Facebook per se, but rather the fascination amongst Facebook addicts to see who can accumulate the most friends, be tagged in the most pictures, and those who constantly set their status to ‘Messy night last night, so drunk’! In all honesty, apart from the person setting the status, no-one really cares.
It seems to me that amongst the Facebook addicts there is almost a competition to see who can achieve the greatest number of Facebook friends, searching for a feeling of popularity. But can a person really have over 1000 friends? Personally, I don’t think I even know the names of 1000 people! Why then, are so many people driven to secure the high tally of Facebook friends? I believe a lot of it comes down to how we want to be perceived by others. By having a seemingly large friend count, within contemporary popular culture, it appears to provide us with social status, and validates the belief in our own personal importance. For sure, the campus “celebrities” and the BNOC’s (Big Name on Campus) will have a great quantity of Facebook friends, and of course, these are the people who hold the positions of status within our student community.
However, I believe it is only the deeply insecure who worry about not having an apparently adequate number of Facebook friends. Why do the Facebook addicts care so much about how they are perceived in cyberspace? It appears that for them, collecting friends offers a sense of status and achievement, which in reality seems rather foolish.
People with real friends surely don’t need the validation of a high friend count, as they are already aware of who their real friends are. If you know who your best friends are, why would you need to create a ‘top friends’ list’ so the rest of the Facebook population can verify this.
Moreover, if you have real friends, why would you want to bore the rest of the world with constant Facebook updates? Why do they think people care about the insignificant detail of much of their lives? It is because setting a status update invests them with a sense of importance they simply do not possess?
Rachael has only 280 Facebook friends, and I have fewer than this. But, I don’t think I’ll be losing too much sleep over it! I’m not a campus celebrity, nor am I a BNOC.
However, like me, those who share my unorthodox stance on Facebook may take some comfort in this; in its traditional sense, friendship is a relationship. It involves the sharing of mutual interests, reciprocity, trust, and the safe revelation of intimate details over time. Because friendship depends on mutual revelations that are concealed from the rest of the world, it can only really flourish within the boundaries of privacy; therefore, the notion of public, and therefore Facebook, friendship is an oxymoron!
For that reason, despite the indications of a Facebook friend count, it is likely that a person with 1000 Facebook friends doesn’t have any more real friends than a person with 57 Facebook friends. Furthermore, the person with 57 friends may be more secure in knowing who their real friends are, and therefore, they do not deem it necessary to validate their social standing by artificially increasing their friend count.
People spend hours boasting about finishing their essays, having the best night ever (my personal ‘favourite’), and last night’s X-Factor results. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to share your anxieties, interests and feelings of enjoyment in the private company of (a) good friend/s?
Yet, in doing this, God forbid the whole world may not then be aware of how much you drank last night, and who you pulled – which perhaps was the point of doing it in the first place.
So for future reference, Facebook addicts, you may want to be less concerned about how you wish to be perceived by others, and more with just enjoying the company of a few (but real!) close friends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
Fantastic article. I regularly delete facebook friends in a 'facebook purge' if I know I won't ever have a need to speak to them again. And I'll add that the one friend I have who has more friends than anyone I know - about 2,500 - is somebody who is well-known for his intimacy issues. Ironic really - but I guess people like that use facebook for networking rather than interactions between friends.
Great article. I personally can't understand this obsession with FB. Go out and talk to people!!!
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report