Daniel Miller’s work provided an interesting lens through
which we may begin to understand Facebook as a media artifact. As I was reading through the book, there were
a few overarching questions that surfaced.
The first
question that I think needs to be addressed when combing through this material
is—what does it mean for Facebook to be a “social network?” There are certainly obvious answers, like “Facebook
takes our social groups and interactions and places them in an online forum.” That explanation seems holistic enough, but
there are some things that it certainly does not capture. I am drawn for some strange reason to a very
particular example of this “network” from Miller’s book which, to me, really
grasps the essence of why we call Facebook a social network. Miller explains that one of Facebook’s
effects is “making partners much more aware of other friendships. Facebook also facilitates the stalking of
partner’s friends” (168). Miller goes on
to quote from an interview the way one woman describes constantly checking her
significant other’s Facebook page to see if he had any new friends. Marvin also made reference to this idea of
being “stalked” by his wife through Facebook.
The reason I feel this embodies the idea of a social network so well is
because it shows the power of what this network is. It is not merely a group of people who share
relationships, but it is a public display of those relationships. Moreover, these show how your social network
can include people more than one degree of separation from you, as the woman
Miller interviews reports ‘stalking’ her boyfriend’s friends through Facebook.
Another big
theme in Miller’s work regards the formation of a relationship with Facebook
itself. I turn again to the case of Marvin
who Miller explains blamed Facebook for the destruction of his relationship
with his wife. Miller says “he wishes he
could end his relationship. He doesn’t
mean his relationship to his wife but rather his relationship with Facebook
itself” (15). Later Miller jokes that
Marvin could have written on his Facebook profile that he was “in a
relationship – with Facebook” (15). This
idea comes up again in Miller’s work under the thesis of ‘Facebook as a
meta-friend.’ This section struck me on
a personal level, because I know a lot of my friends will use Facebook at
insane hours of the night as a way of keeping themselves company while no one
else is awake and they are up doing work.
Some of them go so far as to write status updates that are pages in
length. They use Facebook as a mechanism
of performance art in some ways. While
these statuses certainly contain more substance than those recorded from Aaron’s
Facebook profile—who posted things like “Football should not be called soccer”
(81)—writing a very long status is in no way less of a time suck. All of this is to say that there is something
interesting about the fact that Facebook is a friend we have when we don’t
actually have friends around. It is a
stand-in for these friends, and while we use Facebook to interact with these
people, we consider it to be somewhat of a time-suck. While on the notion of Facebook as a
time-suck, a few years ago Google had a Pac-Man style doodle on its homepage. That reportedly cost the economy $120 million
in productivity loss (http://www.newser.com/story/90060/google-pac-man-doodle-cost-120m-in-lost-work.html). I cannot even imagine what the distraction of
Facebook is costing the economy, but it’s probably huge. The main question I am trying to get at here
is how much of this social network is about our relationships with others, and
how much of what we call a social network is really accounted for by our relationship
with the medium of Facebook itself?
The last
thing I wanted to touch upon is the idea of representation. As I said in a forum post last week, one of
my friends is writing a novel and has made a Facebook page for the main
character. He uses the Facebook page to
explore the world of this character. The
character is very active in posting on people’s walls, RSVPing to events, and
updating his status regularly. According
to Facebook, this character is no less a real person than I am. This is a really weird thing to think about—that
we can create a person out of nothing.
In a way, Facebook has changed what it is to exist as a person. You are no longer yourself as a human being
with a body on Facebook, but you are the amalgamation of the photos, statuses,
wall posts, etc. that exist on your wall.
Your existence on Facebook is one that is heavily mediated. The central question here is—how does Facebook
change the way in which a person is represented? What does it mean to exist in the world of a
social network? How is existence and
subjectivity mediated via the social network?
These are
the three areas I found to be most intriguing and fundamental to understanding
the work done by Miller and during our lecture on Thursday. There are no doubt other key things to look
at in our discussion of the internet, but these provide us with a good starting
point.
14 comments:
I completely agree with the lead blog post this week. Not only was Daniel Miller's Tales of Facebook an intriguing and realistic way to think about Facebook, but my ethnographic research for our class video has also motivated me to think quite parallel to some of Miller's observations. First, I agree that Miller's account of people's uses of Facebook really do help to define what a social network really is. So many people use this social medium to portray themselves, but also to keep track and even "stalk" their friends and others they may not even know very well. I also want to include here the conversation via the Facebook class we attended on Thursday. On it, people even mentioned their doubts or beliefs that Facebook is a medium in which people can portray themselves in any way they want. However, I agree with the comments on Thursday that concurred with people relatively staying true to themselves on Facebook and not trying to give off a fake notion of themselves through their profiles, etc. In my ethnographic work, my interviewees and subjects use Facebook as accurate portraits of themselves, and moreso to enhance their knowledge of their friends. I also, along with the first post, have found that people do indeed develop their own relationships with Facebook itself. My roommate is someone who will be on Facebook at all hours of the day and night, whenever she gets a free moment, because it connects her with others and is a social distraction for her. I have also found in myself as well as others, that the use of this social medium of internet is that its use is almost subconscious at times. Sometimes the first thing I will do when I login to my computer and internet is to click on Facebook. I have also found this ritual use to be common for many people, for I think people truly do what Miller says, that they become "in a relationship- with Facebook".
I completely agree with the lead blog post this week. Not only was Daniel Miller's Tales of Facebook an intriguing and realistic way to think about Facebook, but my ethnographic research for our class video has also motivated me to think quite parallel to some of Miller's observations. First, I agree that Miller's account of people's uses of Facebook really do help to define what a social network really is. So many people use this social medium to portray themselves, but also to keep track and even "stalk" their friends and others they may not even know very well. I also want to include here the conversation via the Facebook class we attended on Thursday. On it, people even mentioned their doubts or beliefs that Facebook is a medium in which people can portray themselves in any way they want. However, I agree with the comments on Thursday that concurred with people relatively staying true to themselves on Facebook and not trying to give off a fake notion of themselves through their profiles, etc. In my ethnographic work, my interviewees and subjects use Facebook as accurate portraits of themselves, and moreso to enhance their knowledge of their friends. I also, along with the first post, have found that people do indeed develop their own relationships with Facebook itself. My roommate is someone who will be on Facebook at all hours of the day and night, whenever she gets a free moment, because it connects her with others and is a social distraction for her. I have also found in myself as well as others, that the use of this social medium of internet is that its use is almost subconscious at times. Sometimes the first thing I will do when I login to my computer and internet is to click on Facebook. I have also found this ritual use to be common for many people, for I think people truly do what Miller says, that they become "in a relationship- with Facebook".
I completely agree with the lead blog post this week. Not only was Daniel Miller's Tales of Facebook an intriguing and realistic way to think about Facebook, but my ethnographic research for our class video has also motivated me to think quite parallel to some of Miller's observations. First, I agree that Miller's account of people's uses of Facebook really do help to define what a social network really is. So many people use this social medium to portray themselves, but also to keep track and even "stalk" their friends and others they may not even know very well. I also want to include here the conversation via the Facebook class we attended on Thursday. On it, people even mentioned their doubts or beliefs that Facebook is a medium in which people can portray themselves in any way they want. However, I agree with the comments on Thursday that concurred with people relatively staying true to themselves on Facebook and not trying to give off a fake notion of themselves through their profiles, etc. In my ethnographic work, my interviewees and subjects use Facebook as accurate portraits of themselves, and moreso to enhance their knowledge of their friends. I also, along with the first post, have found that people do indeed develop their own relationships with Facebook itself. My roommate is someone who will be on Facebook at all hours of the day and night, whenever she gets a free moment, because it connects her with others and is a social distraction for her. I have also found in myself as well as others, that the use of this social medium of internet is that its use is almost subconscious at times. Sometimes the first thing I will do when I login to my computer and internet is to click on Facebook. I have also found this ritual use to be common for many people, for I think people truly do what Miller says, that they become "in a relationship with Facebook".
I also agree with Oliver’s concept of Facebook showcasing a “public display of relationships.” Time and time again when seeing a person’s relationship status with the significant other’s name tagged to identify who the relationship is with (if they so choose), after this title changes and Facebook makes the public aware, it is something that will undoubtedly cause one to question what went wrong with his “friend.” A sense of privacy is lost in a manner, which seemed to be one of Marvin's chief complaints. Marvin’s ability to gain privacy through inbox messaging added confidentiality to his extraneous situations, although this cannot eliminate the need for stalking by his wife. Unless someone’s settings are on “only me,” Facebook’s current capabilities allow easy access for anyone to retrieve information from another person’s profile, which can even drive the need for such habits.
In regards to representation, including in Vishala’s case, I want to say that in a way Facebook can either mask or expose who we truly are. I feel like our own imagination plays a role in this, whether it may be the way that we hope people view us, or the way in which we depict ourselves. As an example, a friend of mine recently found out that someone had created a Facebook account that contained several of her previous profile pictures; the name on the account was the only difference. What is eerie about this is that whoever created the account decided to add several of her own friends, which is how she found out about this bogus account. One of the numerous explanations I came up with was that this mysterious person was trying to imagine what it would be like to live in the “world” of my friend. Granted, although the account was created using some of my friend’s information, it would be interesting for her to take a step back and see if she views herself in the manner in which she was depicted.
As a last little tidbit to Oliver’s comment on how “Facebook is a friend we have when we don’t actually have friends around,” I have attached a link to a youtube video I previously saw about a woman who wanted to make her Facebook friends permanent. In the end the woman’s tattoo was not real, but I guess it is just interesting to think about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvlr1dRpEtE
I also agree with Oliver’s concept of Facebook showcasing a “public display of relationships.” Time and time again when seeing a person’s relationship status with the significant other’s name tagged to identify who the relationship is with (if they so choose), after this title changes and Facebook makes the public aware, it is something that will undoubtedly cause one to question what went wrong with his “friend.” A sense of privacy is lost in a manner, which seemed to be one of Marvin's chief complaints. Marvin’s ability to gain privacy through inbox messaging added confidentiality to his extraneous situations, although this cannot eliminate the need for stalking by his wife. Unless someone’s settings are on “only me,” Facebook’s current capabilities allow easy access for anyone to retrieve information from another person’s profile, which can even drive the need for such habits.
In regards to representation, including in Vishala’s case, I want to say that in a way Facebook can either mask or expose who we truly are. I feel like our own imagination plays a role in this, whether it may be the way that we hope people view us, or the way in which we depict ourselves. As an example, a friend of mine recently found out that someone had created a Facebook account that contained several of her previous profile pictures; the name on the account was the only difference. What is eerie about this is that whoever created the account decided to add several of her own friends, which is how she found out about this bogus account. One of the numerous explanations I came up with was that this mysterious person was trying to imagine what it would be like to live in the “world” of my friend. Granted, although the account was created using some of my friend’s information, it would be interesting for her to take a step back and see if she views herself in the manner in which she was depicted.
As a last little tidbit to Oliver’s comment on how “Facebook is a friend we have when we don’t actually have friends around,” I have attached a link to a youtube video about a woman who wanted to make her Facebook friends permanent. In the end the woman’s tattoo was not real, but I guess it is just interesting to think about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvlr1dRpEtE
The first thing I do when I log on to my computer is sign into facebook. I know that this is a common ritual for many people. I think some people do what Miller says. They develop " a relationship with Facebook.” When people display that they are in a relationship with someone on facebook it makes it public for all to see. With the last girlfriend I had, I did not show that my status was single or I was in a relationship. To me it caused too many problems if you had either one of those choices up. When she asked me to and I did put it up showing everyone that I was in a relationship I had to keep updating it and writing on her wall. I had to show everyone that we truly did have this relationship.
She would argue with me that I was not commenting enough back and forth on her wall. She was UPSET about it. At the time, in order to keep the peace I would write comments on my girlfriend’s wall. But why did I have to comment on her wall? I was over her house for dinner the night before and saw her all that evening. I had two relationships. One with her and one with her on facebook. I would much rather see her than chat with her online.
When we talked about communicating with people on phones and texting we saw how words can be said and interpreted differently. With facebook I feel sometimes I should go on and put how things became “complicated with facebook” status. Like Marvin could have written on his Facebook profile that he was “in a relationship – with Facebook” (15).
I also know a lot of my friends use Facebook at insane hours of the night as a way of keeping themselves company while no one else is awake. It helps keep them up doing work or studying long hours. Maybe to them it is like a friend coming to bring them coffee to help keep them up through the night.
I have a facebook profile and I am active on it but I do not think that I can completely represent who I am through facebook. When looking at other people’s profiles and comments I often think, that's not how they act in person. You certainly can't judge a book by its cover. I do not try to be one who has the most friends on facebook. It says I have around 1500 friends on facebook. In truth I would say I have 4 really close friends. Like the one guy says in the video I have linked below. " A friend will come over and help you move. A good friend will help you move a body." I remember watching a movie when I was in high school about a boy named Ryan Halligan. It was about how he was a victim of cyber bullying and was made fun of online and then committed suicide. You can be a completely different person online than you are in real life. I know people who are shy in person but loud and very interactive online.
To brighten up the mood, the video below is about “How Many Real Friends Do You Have?” I thought it is kind of a funny clip. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVL6cis33bA)
-Chase Winter
The argument I found most interesting in Miller’s book was definitely the fact that people use Facebook as a meta-friend. When we were discussing this on Thursday I first did not agree that this was true. I looked at my own experiences and completely rejected the idea that Facebook could possibly sit in as my “friend.” However, after the discussion I realized that nearly everyone uses Facebook as a meta friend. Although Facebook and real friends are not the same at all, there are many similarities that the two have in common. Someone can talk to a friend to get news about what is going on with other people. When people have nothing to do or they just want to be distracted they can call up a friend up to talk a chat. Like the role of friends, Facebook can be distraction from daily life and a way to catch up on the latest news in people’s lives. When looking at status updates, there are many instances where people are addressing Facebook. It’s almost used as a way for people to get their thoughts out. Who are they getting their thoughts out to? I would say they are not thinking of certain people in a lot of instances, but just Facebook in general. It can even be seen in the way people speak about it in their daily lives. I hear the words Facebook said this a lot when my friends talk about the sight. It is not as if someone said something, but they say it as if Facebook actually was someone who could speak and have thoughts. Reading this section of the book really made me self reflect on the way I use Facebook as a meta-friend whenever I need a break and no one else is around.
I also agree with Oliver’s lead blog post this week. He addresses that Facebook is a public representation of relationships, which is really interesting because as much as Facebook can be an extension of relationships from the real world to the internet, there are some relationships that only exist through Facebook. People can permanently publish how strong their friendships are by consistently posting on each others walls. But does this really help to strengthen the bond between friends or does it just make others aware of a “great” friendship that in reality might not be so strong between the two people? This brings about Oliver’s next point about people representing themselves accurately through Facebook. I feel as if people do not aim to create a false version of themselves through Facebook, however, people can definitely exaggerate some of their qualities. For example, people who are really shy in real life social situations could appear to be very outgoing and friendly on Facebook if they are constantly posting status updates, pictures or “liking” comments. It’s not exactly a misrepresentation but people could be surprised by the difference in their online and real world demeanors. To attempt to answer Oliver’s question about what does it mean to exist in a world of a social media, I’m not really sure if it’s only the people who are consistently interacting with the medium that exist within the network. I think that if a person can look at your page and get a sense for what type of person you are by the information that you included, that you exist in the network, even if you are not a frequent user of Facebook.
I think that this idea of representation is an idea of freedom. Because people are afforded the freedom to pick and choose what aspects of thier personality they reveal on Facebook, it gives a sense of representation that is desireable. Intimate interactions do not even afford this kind of control because close encounters sometime make people nervous and they let things slip out about themselves. Internet interaction and representation is widely used because it gives freedom. Representation is at the core of a Facebook profile, Myspace page or Twitter. People say things that they think will convey a certain image of themselves to be absorbed by friends and online acquaintences.
The dichotomy between the relationship with others and relationship with Facebook itself, brought up in Miller’s book, is intriguing. When considering Facebook as a medium for relationships with others we look at it as a gateway for private conversations to become public. We see in the book how the woman, Caryn becomes jealous after seeing posts by other women on her boyfriend’s wall. One begins to ask if this paranoia is founded. Is this a reality one has formed, impregnated with one’s preconceived notions? For example in the case of Caryn, when the other woman posted a message on her boyfriend’s wall saying, “Thanks for a great night”, what makes her immediately jump to the conclusion that he might be cheating on her? Why couldn’t he have been studying with the woman or volunteering at a homeless shelter? As a gateway to conversation, Facebook leaves events open to interpretation. In essence, it encourages one to insert one’s notions, fears, and wants into the jumbled mix that becomes one’s reality. Looking at it another way, Facebook plays an active role in rendering intolerable something that would be tolerable. On page 23, Miller gives an example of a woman who was photographed dancing with a guy when everyone knew she was engaged. He says, “It’s not like anybody thinks that an engaged woman will never dance with someone else. But once, it is on Facebook, it is bound to cause problems in the relationship.” The American Judicial system prides itself in the slogan that a person is innocent until proven guilty. No matter how much suspicion one might have, without any evidence, the accused is free. Here, Facebook serves as that slam dunk evidence required for conviction.
It is cool to note how Facebook brings about a community. We see in the case of Alana. Miller says “If you are all on Facebook together, then researching homework and socializing are seamlessly joined together…. The more learning is fun, the more it is social, the more individual students actually learn” (pg 20). In Positive Psychology we learned about Happiness. In terms of occupation, one is happy when one experiences “flow” while performing his/her duties. When time flies and all of a sudden, it is the end of the day, but you just want to continue what you are doing. The combination of fun and work can be ascribed to Facebook in this situation. The students enjoy themselves so much that they are willing to change their sleep schedules, waking up at odd hours to enjoy a quiet time on Facebook with friends. It is important to note that this is as much a relationship with friends as it is with Facebook. In order for one to connect to society, one must first develop a relationship with Facebook.
-Emmanuel Ohuabunwa
Like many of the posts thus far, I also found Facebook’s role in building and breaking up relationships to be the most interesting aspect of Miller’s book. For example, Marvin’s issue with his wife’s consistently “stalking” his interactions with other women on Facebook is a good example of how Facebook can destroy a relationship. The whole idea of posting up your “relationship status” can cause issues to emerge. Just as Chase mentioned, relationship statuses can be detrimental to your actual relationships. With Facebook there is now the added question of when is your relationship exclusive enough to make it “Facebook official” and when is the break up finalized enough to change your status from “in a relationship” to “single”, which of course shows up on everyone’s wall and leads to unwanted commentary. Our generation puts a lot of thought into these relationship statuses because something that should be very private is now completely in the public sphere. As Miller puts it, “things that could have been aired, exhumed, reconciled and then buried in private are now too concretely in the public sphere” (12).
Miller brings up the fact that Facebook can serve two distinct purposes. It can potentially create a community, as it did with Alana and group of friends that discuss homework on Facebook forums, “yet at the same time there is the invasion, the devastation of privacy” (24). Some of the examples in the book included “friends” posting up unwanted pictures of people cheating on their boyfriend/girlfriend, or posting gossip or banter online for everyone to see. However, if Facebook is such an invasion of privacy, why do people even participate in it and make their lives vulnerable to the judgment of others? Miller also mentioned how “a more specific privacy issue is the threat to confidentiality when networks come together on Facebook that were previously distinct” (176). We all have different groups that we interact with on a daily basis: our employers, co-workers, classmates, professors, friends and family. I for one try to keep these worlds distinct. It is more difficult to do this with Facebook. An example of how this could be problematic is cases where future employers search a potential employee’s Facebook page before hiring them. Their Facebook pictures and posts are sure to reveal how they chose to represent themselves and how they interact with others.
I think Oliver brought up some interesting points in his blog post this week. I believe that Facebook is such a diverse social network because it allows broader connections than any individual could ever hope to achieve on their own. As a method of connecting with close friends or family, I can just as easily communicate by text message or over the phone. However, the majority of my Facebook friends are people that I would really not consider to be “close”. Yet, depending on their usage and proclivity to update their status or post pictures, I am offered a small window into their lives. In my opinion, Facebook has ended the era of “six degrees of separation”. I would argue that Facebook’s expansion and inclusion into society has knocked two, three, or even four degrees off that old idea.
During the forum discussion last week, I too disagreed that Facebook could be considered a “meta-friend”. However, I too realized that I have been guilty, like most people, of addressing Facebook directly through a status update or comment. I think subconsciously the desire to treat Facebook as a meta-friend has a lot to do with the physical isolation that increases in social media have created. Our social networks are so vast; that a status update or comment directed at no person in particular could still generate a response from someone I went to high school with or knew when I was younger. Even when we are physically alone, Facebook can offer tangible confirmation that there are other people who share the same thoughts or feelings. Or on a more basic level, know what you are doing, or that you still exist.
-Daniel Gergen
I completely agree with this idea of Facebook being another relationship in people's lives, and this is exemplified perfectly by what Chase said in his post. I'm fascinated by this idea that he "had two relationships. One with her and one with her on facebook." I have a friend who has been with his girlfriend for three years (and therefore their relationship is very serious and solid), but they still get in little tiffs over his lack of Facebook activity towards her. Why do people feel that a relationship is not validated if it's not explicitly demonstrated via Facebook?
I definitely think it has a lot to do with this idea that people have developed a relationship with Facebook in itself. I currently have 628 friends on Facebook, and honestly, in the Facebook world, this is seen as average or even low; many of my friends have thousands of Facebook companions. Some of the people I'm "friends" with I only met once; some are acquaintances that I'll say hi to in passing; and some are actually my friends. Others are family members that I'm not able to keep in touch with without Facebook's help. This concept of building and keeping up with a relationship with someone using Facebook alone is very odd, but it's also something that I think many of us find to be quite familiar.
This brings me to Daniel Miller's idea, which many of us brought up and was also discussed on the class Facebook forum last week, of Facebook as a "meta-friend." I completely agree that this type of attitude exists all over the place. Many people, including Oliver in the lead post, said things like "I know a lot of my friends will use Facebook at insane hours of the night as a way of keeping themselves company while no one else is awake and they are up doing work." This is a true statement, and it's odd! I'll be in the library with a bunch of people late at night, focusing on my work because the people around me are doing the same. One-by-one, they start to trickle out, and eventually, I'm alone. I end up having to disable my internet connection because I keep returning to Facebook, much more than I did when my friends were present with me! There is something about this constant need for us to be in communication with people. This also takes me back to my first point about needing to validate one's relationship with a person using Facebook; what's all the hype about posting on somebody's wall when you can just text or call them personally? Why do we choose to share certain things on Facebook and others in a more private way - why does some of it need to be public?
Jessica DeBakey
My apologies for posting so late! I had a bit of an emergency to deal with last night.
Throughout reading Miller’s book, participating in the forum, and reading over Oliver’s lead post, the idea of representation on Facebook vs. representation in daily life has continued to strike me as fascinating. In his post, Oliver mentions that his friend has made a Facebook page for a character in his novel, and that “This is a really weird thing to think about—that we can create a person out of nothing.” I disagree with the idea that this person comes from nowhere, rather, it is a representation of some facet of the author’s personality and research in developing said character. I felt that the voices that many people used to participate in our forum discussion last week also seemed like representations or enhancements of some facets of their beings. For instance, I read over some eloquent and insightful posts by individuals who rarely mutter a sentence in our physical class discussion. I wonder why this is? What makes us more comfortable about interacting with our peers in a virtual social network as opposed to face to face? Where does this newfound boldness or confidence in our insight and intellectuality spring from? Overall, the forum exercise, our readings, and our engagement on the blogs leads me to the conclusion that the characters that exist in social media networks are somehow caricatures of who we are as people in our daily lives. We “friend” people and engage with individuals whom we may not even say “hi” to in passing in real life. What about this form of media enables such boldness? Is it the fact that we are protected from judgment by a screen or the ability to navigate away or “x-out” from an embarrassing picture or statement on Facebook? Can the answers to these questions be determined by purely anthropological pursuits, or must psychology and particularly the psychology of self come into play? The representation of self in social network is particularly intriguing to me.
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