Mark Vernon at Guradian Unlimited has an interesting article about online social habits.
There is no doubt we need more reserach into the social significance of social media.There is a new verb: "to friend". It is what happens when people link up on websites such as MySpace. It differs markedly from "to befriend" which involves getting to know someone. To friend is just to connect.
As Danah Boyd, a social media researcher for Yahoo, has said: people do not think of meeting their online friends - they only think of connecting, for all sorts of different reasons. Michael Bugeja author of Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age, makes a different distinction: "Friending really appeals to the ego, where friendships appeal to the conscience."
Sociologist Sherry Turkle, in New Scientist, expressed her worries that online living is transforming human psychology by deskilling us from being able to be alone, and managing and containing our emotions. We are developing new intimacies with machines that lead to new dependencies - a wired social existence, "a tethered self". Conversation becomes merely sharing gossip, photos or profiles, not, on the whole, the deeper aspects of commitment, community and politics.
I completely agree with you David when you say that we need more research into the social significance of social media.
ReplyDeleteI recently attended the ICCO (International Communication Consultatnts Organization)Summit in Delhi and one of the topics discussed there was how blogging and similar such social netwoking forums have changed the entire concept of Mass Communication, which earlier was mostly the media's monopoly.
I personally feel that emergence and growth of social media forum's has enabled and empowered people in every nook and corner of the world with access to information and views of their global counterparts. However this information is uncontrolled and un-verified hence prone to misguide and misinterpretations.
An indepth research is certainly required on this.