Digital Nation

I was reading through the comments on the website of Digital Nation, when one by Harry Johnson jumped out at me. He claimed that he was a published author, someone you wouldn't think to find on web discussion board. Mr. Johnson's book KIDS, PARENTS & TECHNOLOGY: AN INSTRUCTION GUIDE FOR YOUNG FAMILIES, relates well to what is being said in Digital Nation.


Mr. Johnson claims that technology can be extremely useful and helpful, however with its positive attributes, it also has negative ones. He states that is important for parents to lead their children towards beneficial and positive uses of technology. Mr. Johnson's post is something that can relate to everyone, not just parents, and is something that we should always consider when using technology.

Facebook Friend or Acquaintance?

It seems that in this new technological age so much of our communication is through technology. Whether it is texting on a cell phone or emailing someone from your laptop, we communicate more with people through technology than we do through face-to-face conversations. However, by far and away, the most often used form of this new technology- based communication today is Facebook. It seems that every time I get on the computer the first thing I do is log onto Facebook to check my wall or update my status. One out of every four website views is to Facebook. It is clear that Facebook has revolutionized the way that we communicate with each other, but the question is, is the way we communicate through it necessarily smart or efficient.

            I’m sure that we all have a friend or two on Facebook whose status updates constantly annoy us, I know I do. It could be the girl who only posts song lyrics, or the guy who has his twitter connected to his Facebook so that each time he “tweets”, which is about every 30 minutes, it also updates his status. Whatever the annoyance may be, the fact is that we can all relate to this in some way. This example exemplifies a fault that all of us Facebook users have; something I like to call “Facebook acquaintances”. I think that most would agree that the reason these Facebook friends annoy you and me is because we are not actually friends with them! These are people that we may have met once at a party or on a trip. They could even be a friend of a friend, either way we don’t actually know them that well.

            So, is becoming a Facebook friend with someone we hardly know smart? When we accept or send a friend request we are giving access to our personal information; what kind of movies we like, what kind of music we listen to, and more importantly where we live and work. I realize that I probably sound like a conspiracy theorist saying this, but it is just something that I think many people fail to recognize or consider. If you want an interesting and, I admit, radical example of what I’m talking about, check out the movie Catfish.

Secondly, is the way we communicate through Facebook effective and efficient? If you compare the number of Facebook friends you have to the number of actual friends you have I think you would find the number to be much much higher on Facebook than in real life. So if Facebook is supposed to be a way to communicate and stay in touch with real friends then why do we have more Facebook friends than real ones? As stated earlier, I could care less about quite a bit of my Facebook friend’s status updates or new profile pictures so when they pop up on my news feed it just makes more work for me. I have to sift through all of their statuses to find the ones of my actual friends, which is not extremely efficient.

When I got to thinking about what forms of communication technology to write about the first and most obvious thing that popped into my head was Facebook. I began to think about how I used Facebook to interact with people, but when I thought about who I communicated with I realized that a majority of the people I hardly knew. So these were the affects I came up with that could be caused by befriending of an acquaintance on Facebook. I realize that they are very minor quips, however they are not meant to be urgent warnings, but rather just something to think about. Next time you get a friend request, ask yourself, does this person actually live up to the moniker Facebook friend.

Can you relate to my experiences on Facebook? Have you ever had an annoying Facebook friend? In what ways would you agree or disagree with my claims about safety or efficiency in how we, or at least I, use Facebook?