Quinn Cohane
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

Before this assignment, my public opinion of Twitter was that it was pretty pointless. Who really wants to receive constant updates about someone’s menial daily activities? I just didn’t think Twitter had much of a point. However, I could also tell that Twitter was becoming a large feature of the online world. Many of the websites I visited suggested that I follow them on Facebook- or Twitter. Out of curiosity, I would sometimes visit their Twitter pages (or the Twitter pages of celebrities…) just to see what all the hype was about. I’ll admit it was fun reading about the happenings of celebrities, but I didn’t think that interest would translate to an average person. This assignment gave me the chance to test that theory.

I enthusiastically dove into the task of creating my Twitter: I used my full name as my username in case I want to continue using my account after this assignment, started following websites and celebrities as well as my classmates, and tweeted almost every day. I found that I actually enjoyed checking my Twitter- I liked seeing real-time updates from news sites and magazines. I also enjoyed reading what my classmates posted. Following someone on Twitter is much different than being his/her friend on Facebook. The point of Twitter is to post status updates, so I wound up learning a lot more about what my classmates think about or what kind of activities I do. As a Facebook friend, Peter or Carl or Liza might not update their status that often or add to their profile, so I wouldn’t be learning anything more about any of them.

I found that Twitter is a great tool to use for surveillance. I checked my Twitter a few times a day so I was constantly in touch with what was happening with people. I am following 40 people on Twitter, so there were always new tweets being posted. I could easily find out what was happening with a classmate or a celebrity with one quick click.

I’ll admit that I haven’t thought too much about my privacy. I did use my full name as my username and gave my location as Brunswick, ME. I don’t think my tweets revealed too much about me- they showed what activities I liked, who I’m friendly with, and what times of day I dislike. My tweets are also public. I’m more lax about my privacy controls on Twitter than on Facebook for a few reasons. First, there are no pictures on my Twitter except for my profile picture. I don’t have to worry about family members or potential employers seeing an embarrassing or risqué photo. Second, the only “real” people I’m following/that are following me are my classmates. I don’t think any of them are going to post inappropriate messages that I wouldn’t want other people seeing. One privacy concern I did have is that random people could be looking at my profile. I did get two notifications that strangers were following me. I blocked them, so I’m grateful that Twitter notifies users when someone is following them.

I’ve had a positive experience with Twitter and will be continuing to use my account. My enthusiasm may wane once my classmates stop posting because much of the reason that I like Twitter is because I like getting to know them better. Hopefully more of my friends will join!

I found this week’s readings very relatable. As an 18 year old, I have experienced the transition from young teenager to older teenager, and I can also compare my current habits to my 13 year old sister’s. I agreed with the findings of the Livingstone study: that older and younger teenagers are looking for different things in regard to their online profiles, that teens are more aware of privacy issues that adults give them credit for, and that having an active online social life isn’t always such a bad thing.

In the introduction to her article, Livingstone states that “While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favour a plain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic relationships” (2008, p. 393). When I compare my sister’s Facebook page to my own, I can see this difference clearly. Ryan’s wall is full of messages from the different applications she uses stating that she has reached a new high score or unlocked the next level. She does have plenty of wall posts from friends, but their comments use lots of abbreviations, add extra levels, and feature plenty of exclamation points and hearts. She never deletes the record of her activities, so there’s a long list stating that she liked this person’s photo, wrote on that person’s wall, etc. When I look at my wall, I notice that I don’t have any messages from applications, and I’m conscious to delete most of my activities. The wall posts I’ve received are not necessarily in perfect English, but they do feature more words spelled correctly and proper punctuation. From my observations, I’ve deduced that while I primarily use my Facebook to casually keep in touch with friends, my younger sister uses her Facebook to showcase her every activity.

While this might also depend on age, teens are concerned about the amount of privacy they can apply to their online profiles. Livingstone found that teenagers apply the lessons they’ve learned about privacy for the real world to their online lives. One of her interview subjects, Sophie, stated that “I don’t give stuff away that I’m not willing to share” (2008, p. 404). Teens are aware that posting their home address or even cell phone number might not be such a good idea and try to privatize their profiles as much as possible. They also look for ways to create custom privacy settings: interview subject Nina was “frustrated that her site [did] not allow her to discriminate between who knows what about her within her 300 or so ‘friends” (Livingstone 2008, p. 405). Nina, as well as other teens, knows that not all of her “friends” are actually her friends. Luckily, now Facebook has introduced updated privacy settings so that users can choose how much access to give specific “friends”. Concerns about privacy online will never disappear, but teens are doing more to keep themselves safe than people realize.

There is a lot of publicity about the harm caused by sites like Facebook and Myspace, including cyberbullying and worries about the prevalence of pedophiles. However, there are everyday benefits that stem from having an online profile. One of the teenagers that Livingstone interviewed, Elena, said that she liked when people wrote encouraging messages on her profile: “It’s like quite nice, I think, when people say you’re pretty…I like it when they comment me because, like, it shows they care” (2008, p. 399). When the owner of a Facebook page is visually presented with demonstrations of support, his or her self-esteem rises. Everyone likes being complimented on their profile picture or receiving a wall post saying “Just thinking about you!”. Even if you’ve had a bad day, a message from a far-away friend on Facebook can cheer you up.

Online user-driven sites provide resources that can go beyond the support of an average friendship. The Smith article told the story of the song “Sophie”, which went from being completely unknown to an anthem for those suffering from anorexia. The song’s lyrics touched some listeners so deeply that they were inspired to seek help for their disorder or continue fighting it. The author of the song has received comments on her MySpace page saying “I’m struggling tonight and I happened upon your page. It must be a God thing, and I felt the need to thank you for ‘Sophie” and “I am now going to go and get help for my eating disorder instead of continually trying to convince myself and the counsellors I don’t have a problem” (Smith 2009). It would have been more difficult for listeners to both hear the song and express their gratitude for it without the benefits of social networking sites.

The online world is not perfect. Livingstone acknowledges that online profiles can turn into unhealthy and obsessive demonstrations of status and popularity and, as in the offline world as well, online “friends” can sometimes be cruel (2008, p. 403). However, I do think that online profiles can be helpful for teenagers’ social development. They learn their own preferences, whether it be the colorful, snazzy world of MySpace or the more streamlined style of Facebook. They make decisions regarding their own stance on how much privacy is appropriate and (eventually) learn how to control that. Most importantly, they can form their own supportive community, whether it be based around day-to-day friendships or struggles with hardships. These sites allow teenagers to grow up and chart their own evolution.

http://gawker.com/5484829/13-intimate-facebook-messages-you-werent-supposed-to-see

“Last week, a routine Facebook code update sent hundreds of private messages to the wrong recipients, illustrating the outsized impact of a simple programming bug.”

These are some of the misdirected messages.

I did the unthinkable: I unfriended THREE PEOPLE. When it was first mentioned that we would be unfriending people on Facebook, I was very unenthusiastic. I’ll admit it: I love Facebook. I love looking through my News Feed for interesting wall posts, pictures and bumper stickers. I love being able to talk to my friends through a big group thread. However, I’m trying very, very hard to not get completely addicted. That’s why I decided I had to do this assignment the right way. I would have to find at least one person to cut.
After scrolling through my entire friend list, I found three worthy candidates. One was a guy that had gone to my camp, which is why I accepted him, but I don’t think we actually ever met. Two were people that I worked with at a summer internship but only spoke to once. I don’t think I’ll really miss having any of them on my friend lists. They weren’t particularly active or scandalous people. I did have a slight pang of regret as I pressed the “Remove from Friends” button, but I knew that I wouldn’t really miss any of them.
I chose to unfriend the three people I did because they were useless to me. I’m sure they’re all lovely, nice people, but I use my Facebook to either keep in touch with my true friends or as a source of entertainment. Since these three people weren’t fulfilling either role, they had to go. While this exercise was useful in really making me think about my Facebook use, I haven’t completely changed my habits. Right after I unfriended them, I friended five new people that I actually am friends with. I may have lost three friends, but I will be making up for it.

“The Information Age does not have to be the age of stepped-up inequality, polarization and social exclusion. But for the moment it is” (Webster Ch. 10 p. 143)

In class, we have been discussing the central question regarding the Information Society: are we in it? The quotation above demonstrates that no, we are not all in it. The inequality, polarization and social exclusion brought about by technological advancements have served to separate those who have from those who have not.

For those who have, the obvious answer to the above question is that yes, we are certainly part of an Information Society. Everyone either has a personal computer or has access to a public one. You can do everything online now, from paying bills to making dinner reservations. We communicate with people we know through “computed mediated communication”- also known as e-mail, instant messaging, Facebook and even text messaging (see the Wikipedia page on Computer-mediated communication). That is the problem right there- we can easily reach all of our social contacts through the internet. We automatically generalize “the people we know” to equal “the majority of our country’s population.” In Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, Duncan Watts explains why this generalization occurs:

“Social networks…display what we call clustering, which is really just to say that most people’s friends are also to some extent friends of each other…We tend not so much to have friends as we do groups of friends, each of which is like a little cluster based on shared experience, location or interests” (Watts p. 40)

When we think about “all of the people we know”, the number seems too large to count. We’ve met hundreds, maybe thousands of people in our lifetime. It is logical that we assume this list of names is a representative sample of the population. If all of those people are at least familiar with a computer- voila! We must be in the information age. With this line of thought, however, we neglect to account for clustering. The people we know are just like us, meaning they are probably from a similar socioeconomic class, geographical location, or other form of criteria. We have a long list of names, but it really filters down to the same types of people.

I admit that I can be guilty of this mindset. Sure, there’s Third World (or Fourth World) countries in the world that don’t have the infrastructure to support a computer network. I don’t think that everyone is in the Information Society. But the United States must be close, right?

I’ve mentioned the haves but said nothing about the have-nots. This is the other flaw in our train of thought when we ponder the existence of the Information Society. There are people in the United States that really don’t have access to a computer- they live in an area too rural to get internet access, there’s no public library nearby with one to use, or they just don’t have enough money. There’s also people that do have access to a computer but choose not to use it. Not everyone wants to be part of the Information Society- some are perfectly happy with their lives now and don’t need the complications that new technology inevitably brings. The Information Society is not for everyone; therefore, it cannot be said that “we” as a whole population are in it.