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GETTIN' FRIENDLY
the Internet has introduced oodles of words into xenon, but give Facebook credit for morphing the "friend" into a verb. Along with becoming a new of speech, the term has also, thanks to Facebook, a shift in its meaning.
friend' can now mean anything from a real, true, in the traditional sense of the word to a complete怒ger you never met," Grohol says. "It's really a pointing misuse of the English language."
while Grohl says social networking sites have only used "friend" to draw people in, he says the shift annotation can actually lead to a distorted sense lendship, causing us to develop false feelings of ment and develop attachments quicker. Grohl these simulated friendships we have online can we us to spend less time with those friends who are available to us.
reg Hall, professor of psychology at Bentley age in Massachusetts, says being friends with one online can never truly capture the nuance the subtleties of a face-to-face relationship."When means of getting to know someone is through the interaction, you don't have the same cues
to draw upon—nothing like facial expression, eye contact or tone of voice to gauge the person's interest level, and these are what help people build genuine rapport and attachment."Hall says.
Most experts acknowledge that analyzing the psychology of Facebook is difficult because the site hasn't yet been the subject of much scientific research, though some curious minds have indeed started to investigate. Larry Rosen, professor of psychology in California State University Dominguez Hills and author of Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation, studied how many of the friends people consider "online" friends they also consider to be their "real-life" friends. Rosen says the two numbers do overlap, though usually never 100 percent.
Rosen also conducted a study in 2006 in which participants were introduced to a "friend" on a social networking site and given the opportunity to get to know him or her and share information about themselves."There is a gut-level sense that you always have anonymity when communicating with someone online, even if you know the person," Rosen said. "We found that if people were told they'd have to interact with the person face-to-face later on, they were less self-revealing online."
MIND YOUR MANNERS
Meredith Tack, Oklahoma City senior, logged onto Facebook one morning to learn for the first time that she and her boyfriend were no longer "in a relationship." Any feelings of heartbreak quickly took a backseat to Tack's astonishment at this blunt break-up approach. "I was like, 'are you kidding me?'" Tack says.
"I thought it was a really rude, distant way of doing things, and I don't have much respect for people who can't talk to you face-to-face."
In defense of Tack's bad-mannered ex-boyfriend, Houran says too much time on Facebook can actually stunt your communication skills and emotional intelligence, so that you may very well think that breaking up via Facebook is the best way to handle the situation. After all, if a relationship isn't official until it's "Facebook official," perhaps it's only really over when it's over on Facebook.
Houran says Facebook interaction doesn't allow us to learn or perfect real-world social skills, and as a result, we may find ourselves more awkward and less articulate in unfamiliar social settings. "The flow of conversation online is not the same as it is offline." Houran says. "That time in between me responding allows me to think. We don't have that opportunity when we're in a job interview, in school."
Hall says that we follow established social norms in face-to-face communication, and we have a different set of norms for interacting with a professor than for interacting with our classmates, for example. These standards for behavior don't exist in online social settings, however, and we thus often lose the inhibitions that keep us from embarrassing ourselves in face-to-face conversation. "A lot of misunderstandings and embarrassments happen because of social networking sites," Hall says. "In face-to-face communication, comments might be more subtle. Online communication lacks expression and intonation, which convey a lot of how you mean to say something."
A MIXED BAG
The cultural cloud that is Facebook does have a silver lining.
For Kerri Kolzow, Chicago senior, the site is useful for staying in the loop with her friends back home. "I'm not a junkie, but I like being able to see what my friends in other towns are doing," Kolzow says. "I don't know if we could keep in touch as easily without Facebook."
Houran says that before sites like Facebook, we didn't have as much contact with people from other areas of the world, and when groups of people who couldn't meet before can meet and interact, we become more open-minded."Often times we are more comfortable with people familiar to us," Houran says. "But with Facebook, we don't rush to first impressions or judgments so quickly."
Gregson adds that, for the most part, people will be just as honest about themselves online as they are in person, and that even in face-to-face communication, most people present a persona that is different from their core identity. "People you meet face-to-face in a bar are not going to be 100 percent honest with you," Gregson says. "I think there's a lot more honesty and positive aspects of Facebook than people give it credit for."
Kim Gregson, assistant professor of communications at Ithaca College, says Facebook can help shy students better integrate into college environments and also give them an outlet to express themselves and eventually become more open to face-to-face interaction.
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