Online Social Networking

The newest generation of online social networking technologies has made almost instant social interaction possible without even needing to be physically with the people that you are communicating with. The writer of the “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy” article stated that he believes that this newer and faster method of interaction has stretched people’s abilities to make meaningful social connections due to the shear social complexity of a site like Facebook MySpace or Twitter. I believe that sites like these act more like social amplifiers rather than just overloading us with social information. On my Facebook, I have about 200 friends and regularly communicate with only about 25 of them. The rest of them are mostly just acquaintances who I don’t know very well but provide a sort of background chatter of communication that may vaguely relate to my social “network” in the real world. It doesn’t make someone who is relatively anti-social any more social and the people who are more social continue to be that way. Facebook just makes this social interaction easier to follow, more open and faster than in offline social interaction.
The openness of Facebook, while not necessarily making people any more or less social, does serve to generally make them kinder to each other. Most of the communication on the site is purposefully made to be visible to your friends unless you opt out of this by sending a private message. This means that most people will consider what they are saying more carefully because it will be written out in text for all to see, unlike when you are talking to someone. This definite and concrete form of communication can not be easily removed or manipulated at a later time so people must put more thought into being kind to others on Facebook.