For this I have chosen a site which I am myself part of, this being the social networking site of Facebook. I think it could well be seen as a online community as you put yourself in a network (based on where you live, or uni) and communicate with people in these networks and others in the world who you know. It remains a community for myself as ‘most’ peoples friends on the site are people they know offline as well and use the community to converse further and exchange photo’s and play games etc.
Before I became part of facebook I was set against it. I was scared to have a profile of myself on the internet in which everyone could see. However when I joined I realised that it can be made as private as you want and only joined it because I didn’t want to be ‘left out’ when I first joined Uni. I personally have mine set to the max limit of privacy, people can not even add me, and they can message me asking to; giving me the control. I have found since I have done this I haven’t had friend requests off anyone I didn’t know as ‘strangers’ have been put off the fact they would have to send a message first, which I think is great. This has made the site like a little ‘community’ for me, as only my friends can view and are part of it. It also had encouraged me to keep in touch with friends I might have lost contact with otherwise, friends abroad who it would be ‘effort’ and too expensive to ring. Facebook has made the communication more accessible and easier.
The down side I do find is though I often question if some of my offline communication has decreased because of this online communication. For example you can read each others ‘walls’ and on my news feed I have seen information which I would normally ring the person to ask, however because I have seen the details said to someone else I haven’t got in touch because I already know.
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You said that offline communication has decreased because of the online communication on these networking sites. Do you think that these online communities are a reflection of offline communities? In my opinion I don't think that online ones replace offline ones, but are just an advancement of them. It says in Lister that online communities fail to represent all different ages, sexes, ethnicities etc, because they are so specific, compared to what communities may be like in a town or a street. I think that they are an advancement and because online communication has progressed, it is easier for people to talk online, but this results in older generations etc being left out.
ReplyDeleteI said that my offline communication has decreased and that is a fact as this has happened for me personally. I have many of times said to my friends 'i hate facebook' for this reason as i have stopped calling people for a chat as i have read what they have been up to on the internet. This is a shame as i miss out on hearing the information for myself and any other conversations which could arise from the previous reason for wanting to chat. However for everyone else i can not say whether they are an advancement or not.
ReplyDeleteI am not to sure to whether we should take Lister's thoughts as fact or evidence as he might think that online communities fail to represent all ages etc but i am not sure. I think facebook could represent everyone, as everyone is allowed to access it. Also if it didn't is this a bad thing? Is that its ‘job’? For offline communities it could be argued that they represent more people however sometimes people chose not to be part of these communities and isolate themselves or form segregated communities only representing one type of age, gender or race.
I appreciate that for you Kerry, and also for myself, Facebook is such a large part of communication in our lives that it does tend to mean we lack real life conversations. However, Facebook is one of its kind, it is now SO huge that there are very few of my friends who do not have it.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes find that Facebook creates conversation (maybe you find out information that you would never have known) I agree that it is a shame that contact between myself and friends is sometimes no more than a few Facebook messages but I also feel happy that I have at least this with some people who I otherwise would not still be in contact with.
As a society we may think that the internet is restricting us, but I think Facebook is allowing me to be even more sociable!
carrying on from what hannah and kerry have said i agree with the fact that because facebook allows you to be in contact with your friends so easily and cheaply it tends to stop me from calling them and seeing how they are. it worries me that maybe the next generation will not interact via the telephone at all and msn and social networking sites will take over all communication. what do you think?
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