A commentary on communication in our times.
I have been thinking about the negative aspects of modern communication in general, and the social networking website — Facebook — in particular. Is social networking enriching my life?
The internet is a wonderful resource in many ways. It has revolutionised communication with people and has greatly improved peoples’ access to knowledge. The world truly has shrunk; and has perhaps shrunk further with the advent of online social networking. Facebook is largely replacing Email as the preferred mode of communication: what could be the consequences of such a transition?
The advent of near- instant communication coupled with the state of being always-connected to many people, has undoubtedly led to an increase in the frequency of communication. This increase is seen at extreme levels with social networking websites such as Facebook. However, the two aforementioned factors of near-instant communication and being always-connected to many people, have also largely led to superficiality and a general lack of reflection of that which is being communicated. This phenomenon of ‘Hyper-connectivity’, has led to the state of people being constantly in touch, yet ironically has largely not led to an increase in intimacy between the people who are in near-constant communication with one another. It is difficult to have or maintain, an intimate, meaningful communication/relationship with someone if that person is not being thoughtful, does not talk about himself or herself, or does not talk about what is happening in their life.
What Hyper-connectivity has done is that it has given us easy access to near-instant gratification and less-effort communication. Communication for instant gratification means that communication is largely bound to be broken down into many little chunks of communication, that take little personal effort; and little personal effort, more often than not, translates into communication lacking depth and/or reflection. But surely, some of us sometimes care about meaningful, deeper conversation and communication and are willing to make an effort to do so — so why is this sort of communication rare even between such people? This could be attributed to the pressures of modern life where there is little time and mind-space to engage in such things. Having mind-space is crucial for more thoughtful, more intimate, more meaningful communication, given of course that one is the type who prefers this sort of thing over mundane or superficial communication. Unfortunately a hyper-connected world added to an already stressful modern life is not really conducive to mind-space. Also, near-instant communication often leads to the desire for instant replies, instant gratification. How quickly one could ‘demand’ a reply depends largely on which mode of communication is being used: each mode has inadvertently and implicitly, an ‘acceptable’ time-frame for replying. For example, a person sending a mobile text message will often desire a reply in a matter of minutes. A person sending an email might desire a reply in a day, or a perhaps in a few days at the latest. Someone who wants to chat online would generally desire near-instant replies. But the problem is that the person who has to reply back- the recipient, presuming that he is accessible still may not have the time or the mind-space, or may simply not be in the mood to reply with a thoughtful, meaningful message within the ‘acceptable’ time-frame. Even so, this person is likely to feel the pressure of replying within this time-frame. Why? Because of the feeling of insecurity that their friendship/acquaintance with the sender could be compromised on account of annoyance or offense or any sense of rejection felt by the sender.
With the internet in general, and more so with Facebook in particular, there is this tendency to over-communicate in less than substantial ways. This is partly because of the multitudinous modes of communication available within Facebook itself, from sending a public or private message to sending a virtual beer to ‘bitch-slapping’ someone and much more. It is easy to get lost in this sort of entertainment. The other reasons for over-communication are not exclusive to Facebook: loneliness, boredom, and the feeling of insecurity of losing touch with the people one wants to be in touch with or being forgotten. Whether this communication ends up being at a shallow or deeper level will depend on personality types as well as the nature and strength of the bond shared, and the degree of mutuality.
I suppose that the largely superficial nature of communication via social networking, could work well for the kind of person who is largely emotionally detached from their world; for such a person, a one-to-one intimacy with friends is likely to be of little or no importance in their life. It could work for people who use Facebook as a supplementary rather than primary tool for communicating with friends: unfortunately this is rare because, communication via Facebook is largely lesser effort than email or phone; hence more often than not, it ends up becoming the primary mode of communication. It could work for people whose primary concern with Facebook is to kill boredom. It could work for those people who hope to get in touch with long-lost people. It could work for those people who are lonely, since facebook provides more than adequate noise and buzz, even if a lot of it is a bit empty. You could also share your photos, videos and scribblings, which is in my opinion one of the most positive things about Facebook. It could work for those people who are willing to sacrifice a lot of time in the hope that having a network that consists substantially of near-unknown people could come in handy one day. Perhaps in rare instances, this may help to enchance their professional prospects.
Meeting face-to-face is to my mind still the best, most complete form of communication. Of course this is not always possible since given the nature of modern life, physical distances are inevitable between oneself and the people that one cares about. The next best options are email and phone. If used in the right way, a meaningful, deeper communication, is quite possible with them.
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What bothers me about Facebook in particular?
1. Serious privacy concerns: One of the clauses of Facebook’s Privacy Policy as stated on their website is, ‘We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile. Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile (e.g., removing photo tag links).’
Third party applications i.e. software programs not developed by Facebook available to users of Facebook, have access to almost all user information and Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information. Another scary clause in the Terms of Use which pertains to any personal information, photos, videos, notes etc uploaded by a user, is:
‘By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.’
These clauses are scary enough. I would strongly urge Facebook users or those who would like to join to study the entire Privacy Policy and Terms of Use which are available on the website.
2. I have had little no communication with a large proportion of people and the near-strangers in my ‘friends list’. What’s the point of them being on my Facebook if I am unlikely to ever be in touch with them? And yet they are privy to details of my life and I am to theirs. This is strange and annoying, unless one is into voyeuristic pleasures. Surely it would be better to email my friends directly or Skype them.
3. It is mind-numbingly addictive and a colossal waste of time.
4. Sending messages which can be viewed publicly is termed as writing on someone’s wall in Facebook. I find the concept of writing on someone’s ‘wall’ a little disturbing because I find it impersonal. a) Is the person writing on someone’s ‘wall’ because he/she also wants the message to be seen by other people? In which case there is either some exhibitionism going on here — which may or may not be advantageous to both parties — or, the message is meant to be viewed by a group of people — for instance a group of friends. When the latter instance of chatting among members of a group is at play, this could in theory strengthen the group bond; on the other hand, group chatting could lead to the the build-up of negative group dynamics, and this could weaken the group bond. b) Is there an apprehension in the sender’s mind, that the recipient or someone else, might misunderstand their intentions if the message were private? I would find it rather sad if someone were sending me a public message just for that reason. c) Is it the case that the recipient or perhaps the message itself, is just not important enough to the sender so that it is intended only for the recipient’s eyes? d) Could it also be sometimes that ‘wall writing’ is somewhat detached from the self, and that not having a personal dimension in one’s writing is more conducive to self preservation — as in give less of oneself, get stressed less? It is likely that at least one of the aforementioned factors would be operating with respect to ‘wall’ writing. It appears to be the case that ‘wall’ communication is all about communication of a hidden kind.
The answer to the questions I asked myself at the beginning of this essay for me are clear: Facebook is not enriching my life.
End.
