Hold on a minute. Keep waiting. Sorry about that. I was just updating my Facebook status alerting all eager listeners that I was about to blog about facebook updating. Why is it that some people are compelled to tell other people what they are doing no matter how trivial or banal? "I just ate pancakes", says joe facebook. Well, great. I'm just thrilled you were able to enrich my day so much. I can't wait to here what comes next. You just changed the channel on your tv? Shocking.
Its almost as if back in the good ol' days of internet messaging you had to have someone who wanted to talk to you in order to have a conversation. And now people don't actually have to be engaged in conversation to get their thoughts out. Almost reminds me of blogging. I said almost.
The difference is that most of what people twitter or update their facebook status about is stuff only pertaining to themselves. And its usually nothing interesting or special. They seem to do it just to do it. Its simply narcissistic and exhibitionist. And the more attention some people get the more obsessed they become with the online versions of themselves.
This can become a competition for attention. Competition is a natural activity for humans to engage in. Hot-dog eating contests, running, spelling. It doesn't matter. We like to compete, and that can be a good thing. It can make us healthier and smarter, or simply achieving a set goal can make us feel accomplished.
However, falling short of our goals can get us all wound up. Sad, enraged, defeated, confused and even envious. Although it might not be obvious, some of these mental dispositions can be constructive. As Randolph M Nesse MD and George C Williams PhD state in their book Why We Get Sick, "envy was useful to motivate our ancestors to strive for what others could obtain".
Being motivated towards attention-striving competition just seems mentally unhealthy. In the context of Facebook, others may become envious of what they perceive others to have via their online-selves. Not surprisingly, these online-personas are nothing more than meticulously compromised versions of themselves. As Joanna Lipari, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles notes, "People only present the crème de la crème of their lives on Facebook. It's very seductive."
Nesse and Williams note that "extensive studies by psychologist Douglas Kenrick have shown that after being exposed to photos or stories about desirable potential mates, people decrease their ratings of commitment to their current partners." And as individuals become addicted to these types of sites and more obsessed with competing for attention and perfect pictures it could prove to bring on a number of psychological ailments. I think a friend of mine summed it up quite nicely the other night when he said, "all I care about is looking at pictures of girls I like who are with other guys so I can get all bent out of shape about it".
- m.tsang
3 Comments:
I thought facebook was just for softcore porn, are you implying there is some kind of deeper shallow-networking at work here?
On a more serious note, totally agree. But the utility of such sites for networking cannot be denied and I think facebook did a lot to beat down the self-indulgent nonsense personal webpage-style myspace was (you used to be really good at that!) Twitter, on the other hand, seems about as desirable as an anus on my elbow. Needless to say, I'm not getting one.
So. I am eagerly awaiting an update to this blog. I do care what you have to say.
Bramfeld? Anyway, a new post is actually going up tomorrow. I have been traveling for the last month and haven't been able to update my blog at all :( But have no fear I'm back in action!
Post a Comment