The Virtual World

I wrote this post a week or so before I started reading Danah Boyd's PhD dissertation titled Taken Out of Context:  American Teen Society in Networked Publics.  (I am not really as geeky as this sounds but a friend of my son's linked to this on FB...AND I have not made it through all the the 390 pages and perhaps may never make it to the middle even as I am also in the middle of a Hemingway book and a book of poetry, but some of the  ideas discussed seems to go with this post...so I do add some of it here.)


I have become established on Facebook (FB) in spite of my initial resistance and the fact that the person who originally asked me to join, and whom I befriended, almost immediately left this virtual space and disappeared because of issues with their family!   I am still struggling to understand why those who have hundreds of friends rarely post, and I, of course, have so few friends and post fairly often, and that has become a bit of an embarrassment.  This insecurity is all mine, because no one really cares how many 'friends' I have or clearly how often I post, and sadly, no one really cares what I have to say when I do post!  I disagree with the following conclusion:  "people are no longer shaped just by their dwellings but by their networks (Mitchell 1995: 49)."   Young people perhaps, but not those of us who are old hermits.  We don't care.  I hope I am not being shaped by my 'virtual' networks.  My real networks exist because of who I am...I don't think I am being shaped greatly by them.


(Yet this is perhaps why I find blogging more enjoyable, because of the greater interaction and shaping of thought.)


The interesting aspect of this virtual community (FB) that I have joined is I have found old, old friends that I knew decades ago and had lost contact with over time.  Sometimes these friendships are renewed with energy but most times we no longer have that much in common and this technology doesn't really make it easy to tell our tales and share our commonalities.  It is not exactly like meeting up at the local bar or coffee shop where alcohol or caffeine stimulate reduction in inhibitions and eye contact opens the conversation...something I would do more often if the few friends I have lived anywhere near me!  The exchanges that take place on FB are pretty much superficial.  We congratulate each other on posted accomplishments or send condolences when life is not perking along too well or the younger members post embarrassing pictures from last night's party.  Members also post the results of various virtual games that they play or their daily horoscope or other time-sinks that I have absolute no interest in.


Everything seems to take place in 160 characters or less.  It is a Gen-X world and not at all reflective of  the Jane Austin school of correspondence.  I would call it the IM update school of self-indulgence.  It gives everyone a chance to be a brief stand-out comedian or to rally support for a cause.  One wonders what innocuous post will come back to haunt the poster in decades to come?  Those love affairs that are so pookie cute and then long since dissolved?  Remarks on recent job changes that seemed so innocent at the time?  I am at a stage in my life where anything I say would be miraculous if it actually made an impact on the rest of my life.  But these profiles for the younger generation do continually evolve as its users evolve.. (Danah Michelle Boyd Taken Out of Context  --"Kranzberg’s First Law: “Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral”  (Kranzberg 1986: 454-548). A technology’s value is shaped by its social construction—how designers create it and how people use it, interpret it, and reconfigure it. It is not an outcome of the technology alone or its potential.)


I do post photos and it seems that the historic scanning has put me in touch with friends of my children as they remember the 'good old days.'  Their lives are so busy that they rarely look back and I think that my photos help them put some perspective on their journey(s) forward.  They see themselves in that ancient innocent and enthusiastic period of their lives before responsibilities cluttered their peace.  At least, I like to think that may be true.


But,  as I have often heard and firmly believe, do not put anything on the Internet that you would not want to read the following day on the front pages of a major newspaper.


What do you think of the FB and are you on?