Sunday, December 5, 2010

Has Facebook driven social interaction into a corner? (Part V)

In Parts I-IV I stated the following: Facebook allows its users quick and simple communication on a pleasant interface with millions upon millions of fellow users and the ability to individualize one’s profile information.


In my last entry, I discussed the “pleasant interface” portion of my previous statement under the assumption that Facebook has imposed itself open society instead of the user population consciously changing its tastes to online social networks over other forms of communication. We have seen that this comes about by a combination of users seeking new thrilling media and social networks taking advantage of popular preferences.


Let us now examine the “millions upon millions of fellow users” portion of my original statement. I will begin with a few questions. Is the “millions upon millions of fellow users” facet of Facebook what draws so many users? In other words, is the promotion of its large network the reason for its large network? On a psychological level, can humans maintain so many social connections? Are the relationships “maintained” through Facebook illegitimate relationships, or are they a precursor to human interaction in decades/centuries/millennia to come? What is the significance of “adding” someone as a friend? Are all these friends on an equal level? Are they even friends at all?


It seems paradoxical but it appears that the reason that Facebook has hundreds of millions of users is because it indeed has hundreds of millions of users. As discussed before, Facebook began with a considerably smaller population of users who, ironically using other forms of media (e.g. word of mouth, phone conversations, etc.), diffused the ingenuity of the social network. It is thus logical that before a certain point, Facebook’s survival was in the hands of a select group of individuals who, the network’s officials hoped, would give the site enough publicity that it could soon support itself. Only now can Facebook’s reputation support itself regardless of word of mouth. It appears that a range of user numbers was sufficient for the social network to sustain itself, and become more successful through its undisputed dominant position over other networking sites.


This year, Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford, held a study on human relationships in which he discovered that “people tend to self-organise in groups of 150 because social cohesion begins to deteriorate as groups become larger.” If this is so, how do people have hundreds of friends? How is it that 95% of my own Facebook friends have over 150 friends, and 10% have 1000 or more? If the human brain and physical and emotional capabilities are able to have 150 relationships, does this mean 95% of my friends have evolved beyond this limit? I think not. The probable explanation is that Facebook is conducive to forming acquaintances. Facebook has its members with 2000 friends believe they indeed have at least 2000 relationships in their lives. Yet in reality, “friends” are “made” by just a click of a button. 1850 of these “friends” have distant and frayed social network connections to our 2000-friend member. The question arises again, “Is Facebook preparing us for the future of human relationships?” Will social networking sites enhance human capabilities to sustain relationships in the future? This is highly doubtful for millennia. For now, Facebook just does a superior job of connecting their users to one another. Facebook can’t make friends for you. But it can make you thousands of acquaintances whose histories and faces you can chunk in your memory. Our emotional range and sensory systems haven’t quite caught up with Facebook’s social enthusiasm.

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