When one form of communication has been around long enough, change to how the masses use it will be inevitable. First it was the mail, then it was the telephone, and now Facebook, one of the largest social networks on the planet, is now changing how its users will use their service to meet new people. Facebook’s newest addition to their platform, that has rolled out over the last few weeks, is called “Discover People” and not only looks to change the way we use Facebook but also change the way we live our lives around Facebook. According to Beta News, “It suggests that you become friends with complete strangers.” (Wilson) And that isn’t far from how the process works. Instead of linking you up with people who might be friends of your friends, Facebook takes the bold step of introducing you to people based on location and interests. You could say that it would seem similar to a much more large-scale dating app. But this does not come without its concerns which are also voiced in Beta News when they say, “Using Facebook events (many of which are public and visible to millions of people) as a measure for suggesting friends is a strange choice as it is likely to encourage connections, even harassment -- let's not forget that there are a lot of nutters out there.” (Wilson)
Facebook is possibly on the path to helping the world bring back some kind of spontaneity into meeting people rather than staying in the same kind of bubble we may be used to. However, Baym points out in her book “Personal Connections in the Digital Age” that there is reason to be skeptical of this new feature Facebook is bringing to the masses to allow meeting people through a computer continually more convenient than meeting in real life. She had written, “At the same time, many question whether relationships formed this way [online] can ever be as real as those formed face to face.” (Baym, 10) I believe however that this concern has not only been around for as long as new technology has been developing but is also a popular argument to hide behind when new advances to the way we communicate are invented. Wilson from Beta News, as well as Baym, have framed these advancements in such a negative light that it is in fact detrimental to the advancements that could be made with such technology. And leaving it to open questions of whether this will be better for us down the road are actually harmful. I believe that when the telephone came out, there must have been a small portion of the population that believed that it would destroy the way we communicate to each other. But it not only became one of the most significant ways people communicated with each other but the media ended up taking strong advantage of this and news could travel faster than ever before. The things that we feel may be lost to the advances that we will see over time may be real but it does not mean that they will always have more negatives brought than positives. Through face to face interactions alone, there are people in this world who we will never see in person and who we would never meet by any other form other than our social media presence. And, of course, our media is rapidly changing due to not only what we share but who we share it with.
Work Cited:
Baym, Nancy K. "Making New Media Make Sense." Personal Connections in the Digital Age.
Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. 22-49. Print.
Wilson, Mark. "Facebook rolls out creepy Discover People feature on mobile, suggesting you make friends with strangers." BetaNews. N.p., 02 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment