SPASIFIK Intern FALEN TUUGA STEVENSON talks about her addiction to social networking sites and the effect it has on ‘real life’.
The Facebook/Bebo/Twitter evolution
Facebook, Bebo and Twitter- the holy trinity of social networking sites. It seems like a life-time ago when I think about life before the social networking evolution.
Right up until the age of 13, I had no cell phone and no email. Communication with my friends and family was pretty straight forward. Three years later when entering my first year of NCEA, I made my first ever account on a social networking site.
Bebo is something I associate with my high school years. It was, in a way, a big part of my teenage life, which is kind of sad to say.
The amount time and effort I put into personalising my page defiantly out-weighed the amount of time I put into my school work. I believed that by deleting my page I would get more work done. So, gone it went.
Fast forward to my first year at University. Everybody was telling me about this new site, Facebook. I was hesitant to make a profile to start with, but with all the assignments, I felt the need to have something to help me procrastinate.
Without beating around the bush, I am now a Facebook addict. I spend most of my days signing in and out of my page checking my notifications, uploading photos, sharing links and just really having a nosey at everybody else’s lives.
Social networking sites have become such a commonplace in our lives we don’t even realise when they are influencing our actions, like impulse to express yourself via status updates on Facebook.
Facebook is such a readily available source that it allows, and in some ways encourages, us to act on our thoughts and feelings immediately, as we feel them, without thinking of repercussions or consequences. A negative effect of this is the inability to take anything back.
For all types of relationships, whether parent to child or boyfriend to girlfriend, these sites serve as a type of surveillance. Too many stories on the news talk of the dangers of social networking sites with teenagers. Girls subjected to committing suicide as part of cyber-bullying and relationships going down the drain due to infidelity online.
To me, social networking sites are a place where I can freely express myself and communicate with friends and family. The convenience of them makes it even better. My only worry now is the privacy issues.
As these sites are becoming more readily available, future employers will be able to find information from my adolescent and student years.
However in saying this, how much privacy can the everyday person expect in a world where people use social sites like twitter to tell us what they've had for lunch, how much work they have left to do or whether or not their boss is being mean and nasty to them.
Social networking sites have become a part of society and in a way an extended version of our individual identity. People find that they are escaping the reality of life when they surf the net.
Although Facebook doesn’t help when assignments are due, I doubt I will be deleting my page anytime soon.
Blog: Is social networking good or bad for personal relationships? Are you a social networking addict?