Taking on the challenge of Facebook, I immediately find it empowering observing people on the giant social network, why? Well, Facebook is the global connector of people. Granting us the power to do almost anything online with our ‘friends’. However, I believe it is similar to a prison. Instead of keeping criminals locked up, it locks in just about everyone, good or bad, through the huge network of people using it.
I want to touch on this quote from Yi-Fi Tuan (1977), “Experiences… make us ponder anew the meaning of a word like “space” or “spaciousness” that we think we know well.” (pp. 4). I remember first joining Facebook almost 4 years ago, I was excited, this brand new space I was joining that almost all my friends had. How wrong I was.
Facebook, now, is the place people come to, whether they like to or not. It has become the social network home of many people. They don’t choose to log on to Facebook, it just happens subconsciously. It’s a routine, just like prison life becomes. What’s one of the first things you do when you wake up? Log in on your phone to the blue app.
The problem? As soon as we’re on, we all become cynical towards our “friends”. And our online place of peace and comfort becomes a space where we are all silently judged by all our friends, family, peers and mutual friends (depending on privacy settings), with every single post, comment or like we make.
I was naïve once, but with experience have come to realised that Facebook isn’t this brilliant place for us all to come to so that we can share wonderful experiences with our friends and family. It’s a space we come to so that we can pass judgement on others, whether we like it or not. Why? Because we’re people, it’s what we do.
A safe place, or a judging space? (Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/facebook-hoax-1.3248499)
If you want to a clip that might help you with breaking the shackles of your Facebook friend dependent life, try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVRbSuY3h9w.
Bibliography
Image. (2015) Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/facebook-hoax-1.3248499
Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. London, England: Edward Arnold Ltd.
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