Facebook: Good or bad? Is it nurturing our families and communities by bringing us closer together? Or is it a dangerous threat -- a technology that fosters isolation, anxiety and narcissism?
These two perspectives have been squaring off, even as Facebook: The Movie -- aka "The Social Network" -- vies for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, and Facebook is credited with playing a key role in Egypt's mass protests. Along with MIT professor Sherry Turkle's new book "Alone Together," an intriguing treatise on how technology is warping relationships and undermining civic values, Facebook antis have found support in a widely circulated piece by Libby Copeland in Slate's DoubleX, which uses new research to argue that Facebook is making us less happy by encouraging us to compare our lives to the staged Hallmark moments of friends' newsfeeds.
Strangely lost in the debate is the fact that there is no single Facebook experience. We -- not Facebook -- determine who our friends are, how often we see their posts, how we engage with them, and the myriad other experiences that constitute "our" Facebook. We -- not Facebook -- have the agency here. Facebook is what we make it.
For the record, I spend a lot of time on Facebook, and the Facebook that critics describe bears scant resemblance to mine. While their Facebook resembles an extended ad campaign -- an endless unfolding of picture-perfect lives -- my Facebook prominently features: a friend's poignant blog about life with her profoundly autistic son, a law school classmate turned scholar who explains the economic crisis in ways I can actually understand, the Dalai Lama's newsfeed, and a vast array of delightful friends whose humor runs to the dry/dark.
Which isn't to say I haven't had my moments on Facebook's dark side -- the two-minute break that turns into two hours, the twinge that arises when a lucky acquaintance seems to get yet another break -- but rather than blaming the technology, why not look to ourselves? Facebook isn't going away anytime soon. Why not bolster the ways it enhances our lives and reduce the ways it depletes them?
To this end, we'd do well to consider research from the world of behavioral economics, in particular the role of "choice architecture" in shaping our lives. What does this mean? In their eye-opening book "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness," professors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein explain that bad choices can often be traced to environments that actively encourage them. For example, how food is arranged in a school cafeteria does much to predict what kids will eat for lunch. Research has shown that by simply rearranging the cafeteria -- by altering the "choice architecture" -- it's possible to increase or decrease the consumption of many foods by as much as 25 percent. The bottom line: Everything matters. Our environments have a huge impact on the decisions we make.
In a similar vein, we'd be smart to give serious thought to the "choice architecture" of our online lives. Already, there are some signs that we're moving in this direction. One example is Freedom, an application that locks off a computer's Internet access for up to eight hours at a time. (At a reading I recently attended, a novelist sang its praises.) As the Freedom website explains: "The hassle of rebooting means you're less likely to cheat, and you'll enjoy enhanced productivity." Choice architecture at its finest. There are also smaller scale adjustments -- steps each of us can easily take -- such as temporarily "hiding" friends whose posts are likely to prove distracting or upsetting.
One curious aspect of the ever thought-provoking "Alone Together" is how Turkle endows technology with figurative agency even as she stresses the (valid) point that machines can't want or feel. "Technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies," she writes in her introduction. At the same time, her technology-using humans are an oddly powerless bunch, more acted upon than actors. For example, reporting teens' accounts of their online lives, Turkle notes that some say they "find themselves being 'cruel.'" Another teen explains that he has no choice but to text and drive: "If I get a Facebook message or something posted on my wall... I have to see it. I have to."
What's lost here is the choice point: Kids don't simply "find themselves" acting cruel, and they don't "have to" text while driving. Rather, they -- and we -- make choices that lead to these actions. True, teens are notoriously lacking in impulse control, but isn't that all the more reason to home in on this issue, to come up with structural supports that would "nudge" them towards healthier behaviors? That's where adults come in.
16-year-old Roanne keeps her diary in a paper journal because, as Turkle explains, "[s]he says she is too weak to stay focused when she has the Internet to tempt her." Too weak? In essence, what Roanne is doing is taking control of her online experience by adopting "choice architecture" that effectively supports her goals. This capacity strikes me as invaluable, absolutely necessary if we're to assume the reins of our online lives. It's a skill we'd all do well to cultivate. And it's not weakness: It's wisdom.
Follow Amy Gutman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/planbnation
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Facebook, or social networks in general, are the next evolution in communication technology. *YOU* choose how much time you spend online, no different than how much time you spend reading a book, writing a letter, or how much TV you watch in a day. You get out of it what you put in it. Facebook can be a quiet place to catch up with your family, or you can look into the lives of 100s of people you barely know. The connections you make and foster through FB are as vapid or as deep as anywhere else in our lives.
To many people, not having facebook is like not having email or a cell phone. You alone make the choice to participate in a communication medium that many are beginning to use as their primary one. Not having facebook can be analogous to not having an email address or not having a phone.
The world is evolving past email and telephones. If you choose not to participate, don't be surprised when people move on without you.
We're not evolving beyond the delight of each other's company.
Again, its what you make of it. I for one love when my wife and I have a party at our house for friends and family, and then for the next week or two people are posting pictures from it and commenting on them together. Many times new friendships and born in the process. Another major joy I get from facebook is seeing the kids of family members grow up in pictures and videos they share- sure its not like being there, but at least I get a glimpse of what I would not otherwise. As a result of finding common ground with family members that I am far from, it lead to video conferencing, and then visits with extended family that I doubt I would have ever been connected to without social networks.
When those same friends who 'forgave you' start organizing outings via facebook, and stop using phones or paper invitations, hopefully they won't forget you. It happens more than you realize.
masse, it's probably worth trying healthy doses of strategy and moderation. Though you are
making me wonder: is there already a basement somewhere where people are saying
"We admitted we were powerless over Facebook...."?
Face book is like a slot machine. Same little rush. Put another quarter in. When scientist get around to hooking us up to see what part of the brain lights up when we are on face book, i have no doubt it will be the same part that lights up when a few quarters fall out of a slot machine.
I have a limited number of "friends" and rarely check to see what's going on unless I have a direct message or invitation. However, it has allowed me to keep track of a few family members who live far away; my kids keep track of school friends and cousins.
The silliness of constant comments, naval gazing, ridiculous quizzes, time-wasting games, etc., wears thin very fast when you have other things to do.
I also get a lot more reading and needlework done now.
http://www.mylifewithateen.com/content/teenagers-facebook-and-privacy-no-such-thing
The short indie is about a girl who tries to break out of a world where everyone is plugged into their headphones. A world with no interaction.
Please take a few minutes of your time to watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmRsfnZJh0c
Thanks!
The internet can be used for good or to rot our minds. People need the wisdom to disconnect and let all these digital trappings fall away and free themselves and pursue knowledge and wisdom.
When I suspended my account, I had a really good friend ask me if I hated her. This was someone I often called, wrote or saw in person and never even looked at her profile (I already knew what I needed to know about her). The idea that FB is the true measure of friendship really freaked me out, especially when FB was never part of our friendship.
Not having facebook, or closing your fb account, is understandably analogous to not having an email address or shutting off your phone numbers.
Facebook is a modern communication medium. You get out of it what you put in to it, and it can be as big or as small a part of your daily life as you so choose. If it rotted your mind, its because you chose to use it that way.
To deny the value of social networking is to deny the value of pen and paper, telephones, television, email and every other communication method ever used.
Facebook is NOT a communication medium because very rarely does anything of value or signficance get communicated over it. It is however an entertainment medium that can suck hours of your life into totally unproductive activity. The thing is you don't "get" anything of any real value out of Facebook, you only "put" time and effort into it. At best it is a mindless pass time at worst a crippling addiction.
Please don't peddle the social network Kool-aid and try to pass off FB as some scion of the digital age. FB hasn't invented anything that wasn't there already and it isn't a "communication medium" no matter how much you want it to be. Some of us will stick to our IMs, IRC and E-mail as they are more secure and more meaningful forms of communication, thank you very much!
Pictures of children and grandchildren of far away friends.
Posts from my art history friend about art
Posts from my native American friend about interesting issues within the indigenous community
Posts from relatives I haven't seen in many years, and have a real time connection to their lives.
Wit wisdom and humor from beloved and cherished friends.
Recipes and you-tube videos I would never seek out on my own.
It is so much better than an annual Christmas card.
Facebook does not make people unhappy any more than shopping makes them happy.
It is just a way to keep the thread of the mundane things in life going with the people you love. And let's face it, sharing the mundane details of life, which is the story of our lives, is what keeps relationships alive accross the distance of time and geography.
have moral overtones. It simply describes what is.....we control Facebook, not the other way around.
Full disclosure....I met Amy through another virtual medium, a teleclass, and we became FB friends.
And through her....not only her own witty and wise posts....but her amazing group of friends, whom she eagerly introduces.....my world has become enriched in ways that I could not imagine.But I don't dispute the pitfalls for myself and others, e.g., I'd love to blame FB for sitting more and exercising less, or for accomplishing too little on some work projects because I pretend I'm working when I'm really playing. And I'm sure for some, the FB experience could have a host of other deleterious
effects. Again, though, Amy really nailed it with the term "agency"....and even though FB may be in many ways seductive and seemingly addictive, we do have the freedom to unplug. And just because something is hard doesn't mean it's impossible!
Real life is not for the faint of heart! It takes a lot of integrity to stand in reality, on most days. Even so, I find it more palatable than the falseness of a 'social network' that is rife with fakes and fraud and opportunities for identity theft. Yes, that occurs "IRL" too. But the chances of someone being able to drive by my house and detect my birthdate, what my spouse's and friends' names are, and what time I left for work and what time I'll be back are much less than someone driving by my facebook profile and gleaning that information.
Facebook is an erosion of all we value in life. Focus on real relationships with those that are in your presence and subjects that have genuine relevance in life. And guess what-we don't need to know every time you pick your nose or you notice your neighbor is having an affair either. Sorry, you aren't that interesting.
Put your time to better use.