Facebook: Sara Lester

Facebook: Reflecting our society?

     The article Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares? by Danah Boyd and Eszter Hargittai seem mainly to explore privacy debates over Facebook, when they actually delve much deeper into the societal significance of Facebook.  The main points in the article deal with the complaints by journalists over increasingly complicated privacy settings on Facebook.  The article then proceeds to discuss Facebook’s actions to appease those in the media.  As Facebook has added more and more users to this social network, it would seem as privacy controls were being changed quite often.  The main issue is that privacy setting would automatically be set to allowing everyone with a computer to access your personal information.  In addition one would have to manually go in and change the settings to private.  The real question is, does the growing number of Facebook users know how to change their settings?

    Another very important aspect of the article discusses a study conducted of Facebook users age 18-19 regarding privacy settings.  The results show that being a regular user of the site is associated with more frequent changes to one’s privacy settings, as well as most Facebook users reported having modified their privacy settings at least once in 2009. Privacy is apparently very important to young adults today.  However, Facebook has expressed that is a common assumption that today’s youth are unconcerned about privacy and will not take steps to protect themselves.  

    Facebook takes the social media aspect to an extreme.  In the Medium is the Massage; by McLuhan it highlights several aspects the Internet that will change our society.  Facebook has remained flexible, which is why it has remained a widely popular social media site and it also gaining more users everyday.  At 500 million users, Facebook is doing something correctly.  McLuhan notes much about surveillance in his novel.  Facebook is not all the private when users are unable to figure out how to change their settings and is no way private to their “friends.”  Also when using Facebook a post, picture, status update is immediately sent to all your followers, demonstrating his idea of immediate consequences.  Another point I would like to connect to McLuhan’s is the idea of communalism on the net.  This is especially true for Facebook because one is apart of a community and is constantly speaking, posting, poking, commenting, and “liking,” what their friends are doing.  In essence on Facebook you are involved in a mini virtual society.  The last topic I will discuss about McLuhan is the clash of old versus new.   Studies have shown that new users are unable to adequately protect themselves compared with older users.  This also is the case of older users compared with younger users.  This makes obvious the point that the younger generation is better equipped with technology because as Shirky eloquently states that technology is most powerful when we forget its capabilities.  The younger generation has a much easier chance of experiencing this phenomenon.
    Another theorist that we have studied is Carr in the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”  His main concerns are that we all have become distracted because our attention spans are extremely short due to the Internet, we are lazy, and what instant feeds are doing to us.  I could hardly help but connect this with Facebook.  Users are fed with constant status updates, new pictures, and new friend requests. Users are accustomed to the fast paced commenting and scanning.  Not to mention that Facebook is absolutely a huge distraction for students and now adults these days.  It is no secret that students spend a lot of time on Facebook in class.  Luckily teachers are catching on quickly and prohibiting laptops. Since teachers are outlawing computers, man useful programs for education are simultaneously being shut down as well.  Facebook has become an addiction for the growing 500 million users are counting, while other activities are put in the backseat.
    The last topic I would like to discuss is rhetoric.  Facebook is a host to numerous participants, its audience.  It is quite a large audience.  The question is, is it purposeful?  Most of the information streaming through Facebook seems quite arbitrary.  The majority of posts consist of simple everyday tasks, poking people, clicking “like,” among other functions.  Facebook does not promote searching for truth. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in order to connect other students on one campus.  It was essentially created for social reasons, and it has consisted as a social site that merely connects people.  The importance of the site is to allow people to be attuned with their friends’ daily activities. However, for some people Facebook is a way of knowing the world because we now understand the world in digital terms.  Facebook is a tool for expressing value and perhaps truth, as Freedman discusses.  In referring to the article, it is absolutely purposeful information.  The article is aiming to find the truth behind whether or not the users of Facebook are concerned with privacy.  The article is successful using a study.  Facebook is another avenue of rhetoric.  Discussing Shirky’s point of view about technology changing everything that we do.  Facebook has allowed everyone to be a publisher; it has changed the way people gather together.  Facebook has the capacity to gather people efficiently, in order to accomplish one goal.  Mostly, Facebook is not used in this way. 
    The significance of the article is that is shows that we are as a society are willing to share personal information more readily than before. This is accelerated through the Internet, but more so through websites such as Facebook where sharing personal information is vital in being a member of the site.  This article does show a resistance to whom we will share information with.  The point is that this changing media, that essentially we have no control over, is evolving so quickly that most users are unable to keep up with the changes.  Concerning digital literacy, the simple fact that users are unable to locate information on a social media site, does not seem promising for digital literacy skills.  However, it was noted that younger users are changing and manipulating their privacy information.  This leads to the conclusion that the younger generation is more technologically savvy and they are digitally literate compared with older generations.  This is important to further study because social media is expanding at rapid rates, it is important to see the effects it will have on digital literacy.  My opinion is that Facebook is an important site to most students and they will continue to use it whether or not they fully understand it.  I do think digital literacy is improving overall because children are using and practicing on the Internet.  Younger kids are able to manipulate settings on social media, whereas others are unable to. Overall Facebook has changed the way we live, communicate, gather, and understand the Internet.  Facebook has the capability to positively impact our lives, while it could also negatively effect it, as Shirky would argue it is in the way we utilize it.