A close friend of mine passed away unexpectedly about two weeks ago. I realize that everyone deals with such losses in different ways, but I was amazed at how one brand kept horning its way into every one of my conversations with his friends and family in the wake of his passing: Facebook.
Facebook recently announced its 500 millionth member. It’s everywhere. Even my mom, who is THE biggest technophobe out there, has given in to peer and familial pressure to join Facebook. She had been complaining that I never would send her pictures of my life in NYC, and I reminded her that I post all of my pictures to my Facebook profile where she can easily find them. Through multiple in-person demonstrations, I’ve finally taught her how user-friendly Facebook can be and the marvelous capabilities it offers to stay abreast of what is happening in every relative’s and friend’s life.
After my mom became better acquainted with Facebook, she loved calling attention to how many Facebook ‘friends’ I maintained. “Do you really have over 1,000 friends? Can you really keep track of everyone? Are you spending so much time on Facebook that you are losing close relationships?” Her point is well made. How can I regularly maintain contact with that many people? Some friends of mine have even more Facebook friends than I have, although Facebook caps users out at 5,000 friends.
‘Dunbar’s number’ suggests that there is a theoretical cognitive limit on the number of relationships humans can maintain, indicating that humans can form a maximum of about 150 relationships. Facebook is providing a technological crutch to humans that enables us to push the limits of ‘Dunbar’s number.” This has its benefits, but what are the negative social implications?
With my friend’s passing, I realized that during every conversation throughout the past two weeks, Facebook keeps getting referenced as THE way to get in contact with large amounts of people at once. We can issue Facebook status updates on his profile page to reach over 1,000 people. Unfortunately, this was how some people even initially learned of his passing. Are we such an impersonal society now that we can broadcast the death of a loved one on a public site?
Other social technologies are promoting milestones regarding how they’ve tethered humans together through technology. Twitter just announced its 20 billionth Tweet. Tumblr just announced 6.6 million users, laying the foundation for the next major challenger to Facebook and Twitter. Even surveys are pointing to the growth of the socialization-via-technology crutch, finding that consumers spend about a quarter of their internet time on social networks. I personally speak much less on the phone than I did 10 years ago, as social networking enables me to stay more closely updated with a vast array of friends and family. It’s so easy to stay in touch with someone that I practically have to TRY to lose contact with someone now.
The vast opportunities offered by social networking are increasing by the minute as more users are picked up by each technology. Imagine the power of one brand with one billion users! Unfortunately, our ancestors may be rolling over in their graves as we devise ways to maintain larger networks of friends at the peril of ethical communication habits.
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