Friendship on SNSs--Online interactions

Friendship on SNSs

For this week’s readings, I first read Weeks’ Social Responsibility and the Web: A Drama Unfolds. The author highlighted the influence of social media on our life by saying that, “Although social media may change how we interact with others, it's unlikely to change core human concepts of friendship and community.” I agree to it. Regarding my experience of using Facebook, the SNS connects me with my friends, whom I know in different social organizations, such as schools and workplace, and with the friends of my friends. Through the SNS, I can easily make new friends and keep in touch with my old friends without time-and-space limitation. Weeks’ opinion also corresponds to what Galston (2002) said, “Contemporary American cultural value is about individual choice and longing for community.” In my mind, the value of individual choice is a good example of how social media change the way we used to communicate. In Weeks’ article, Fogg held that the text-based communication of social media is unfavorable to expressing emotion and deepening online relationships. Therefore, a question that I have been asking myself came up again—why do people want to friend someone whom they don’t know? If you receive the request, will you add those people as your friends? After posting the question on my Facebook, I got many insightful answers. One said, “I will accept their requests. It is nice to talk to someone who is fun. However, if the new friend is boring or odd, I can choose not to talk to them anymore. The right of choice is one of the values that the social network site brings to us.”

In Galston’s article, the meaning of online community is an interesting issue for me. According to Licklider and Taylor, online communication facilitates the growth of shared interests. Snyder said that people in a community should have greater things in common than a fascination with a narrowly defined topic. These points are in line with the example of Ayelet Waldman’s call for help in Weeks’ article (2009) and with what LaRose et al (2001) said that social support for major life crises might be more forthcoming from online discussion groups organized around major life crises (e.g., cancer support groups) than from e-mail with known associates. I think that the power of online community should never be downplayed because the social support from online community can empower a person. Several years ago, there was a very popular Japanese movie Train Man, adapted from a true story happening in a Japanese SNS. A 20-something man protected several women from a drunk man’s harassment on a train, and because of that he had a chance to date one of the women. However, in the subsequent dates, he encountered trouble and frustration, and started questioning whether he was right for the woman. He posted his question online and got many Net pals’ positive feedback. Thank to the Net pals’ encouragement, he started to have faith in the relationship.

Although Thomas Bender believed that a community should have a sense of mutual obligation, Ryan (2006) pointed out the commodification of social relationships, which reveals the possible dark side of the online relationships among the community. As I posted my question on Facebook, several people commented that they are cautious about accepting the requests from strangers because they want to keep their privacy and doubt that those requests can be the spam. Despite the doubts from SNSs’ users, some SNSs do make use of the commodification of social relationships, such as what FriendFlood.com does, as mentioned in Rosen (2007). Rosen and LaRose have different viewpoints to the online relationships. LaRose pointed out the possibility that the superficial, weak online relationships will diminish the meaningful, strong real-life relationships, reduce social support and increase depression. However, Rosen held that the weak ties can be more useful in passing out certain types of information than the strong ties. In my mind, the two viewpoints are both right depending on who uses the relationships for what purposes. Many people addicted to virtual worlds have trouble in real life. They withdraw from social events and are only comfortable in talking through texts. By contrast, a socializing person with many virtual friends can make use of the large online social networks to get and exchange information to fulfill his / her real-life needs. One of the respondents on my Facebook said that she treated the SNS as a place to accumulate social capital, so she is willing to be a friend of someone whom she doesn’t know before.

By sharing ideas with my respondents, I learned that people are using SNSs to systematically deal with their friendship. They sort their friends by actively deciding whether to accept the request of adding someone as a friend. They want to be someone’s friend due to a bunch of reasons. The top reason is how much I know the person. In addition, some of them care to know more people, so they are open to accepting the request from a stranger. After having many friends, the next step that technology can do is to help us collect, manage, and rank the people we know, as mentioned by Rosen (2007). All of these are very precious experience that we can do better online than offline.

Social computing

    Two references are cited about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords: (a) Shootings prompt debate on tenor of political discourse; (b) Guns, anger, politics: A dangerous mix? (Links are offered at the bottom). The trigger of the tragedy is still inconclusive but a majority of people believe it happened due to the murderer’s ill mentality (See the video entitled What was Loughner’s state of mind as shown in the second reference). Before committing the crime, Loughner, the murderer, had posted many strange opinions on an online gaming forum. Those postings showed he resented his life, faced rejection, and searched for purposes. According to Nardi, Schiano, and Gumbrecht (2004), people engage in online activities because of certain purposes. In the case of Loughner, it seems that he attempted to release emotional tension through writing some startling opinions. When he was expressing those unpleasant thoughts, he might be seeking for others’ feedback in the meantime. Regarding what mentioned above, social media, the online gaming forum for example, bridge an individual and others in the society and make communication happen. However, it did not happen in the case. No one has taken serious action to treat his opinions and stopped the tragedy from happening. Krishnamurthy (2002, as cited in Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, and Wright, 2004) held that people were usually attracted by most insightful or controversial posts and commented on them. Loughner’s posts were extremely controversial, but why his posts did not get too much attention? 

    The situation probably could be explained in terms of the purpose of using social media. On the basis of Boyd and Ellison’s study (2007), people used social network sites (SNSs) more for keeping contact with someone they had already known than for interacting with strangers. Loughner, described as an isolated person, might not be a friend of other users in that online forum; therefore, those people did not seriously care about his deranged opinions because they cared more about what their friends said. After the tragedy happened, the public has intensively debating on what caused the whole thing to happen and what should the Americans do in the next step (See the first reference). In brief, there are four main concerns raised in the debate.

1.      The medical system of taking care of the mentally ill should be reexamined. Reportedly, Loughner had mental problems while he was in the college and was asked to get a mental health evaluation to prove he was not dangerous. However, it is a common but inefficient solution.

2.      The gun laws should be reexamined. It is dangerous that mentally-ill people, like Loughner, could easily purchase a gun. A foreign journalist even questioned whether the “surplus” freedom an American possesses boosts the prevalence of gun possession (See the video entitled Journalist questions US gun laws as shown in the second reference).

3.      Someone’s opinion influences others through social media. Some people thought that politicians and celebrities should be careful when expressing their opinions, especially in the social media-booming age. Sarah Palin’s “Don't retreat, reload” to her followers and Sheriff Dupnik and his opponents’ debate are all the evidence. Moreover, their opinions when broadcasted through media will be somehow “inauthentic”, which means messages will be delivered in a certain way to satisfy certain purposes or needs, so what the audience receives may be different from the speaker’s original intention to a certain degree. Carol (2007) warned the fine line between facts and fictions when the news is something else in disguise. The politicians’ and celebrities’ opinions, after delivered by media, have different interpretations in the audience’s mind, which can be dangerous to the mentally ill. They are incapable of differentiating dreams and reality; as a result, they could be affected by the somehow inauthentic news and take violent action to it.

In my mind, social computing is a behavior of engaging in online activities for purposes. Among a variety of purposes, maintaining the relationship between an individual and people who he knows is essential. It can be a good tool for people to release their emotions and get feedback from their friends and to easily get together and discuss some important social issues. Nonetheless, it can be harmful if someone manipulates the tool to spread destructive opinions and unfortunately some fragile minds get screwed.

References:

1.      Shootings prompt debate on tenor of political discourse http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/10/arizona.shooting.views/index.html?iref=allsearch

2.      Guns, anger, politics: A dangerous mix? http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/14/mann.giffords/index.html?iref=allsearch