Identity Crisis November 20, 2009
Posted by singings21 in Uncategorized.Tags: Facebook, Wordpress
add a comment
The Internet allows for many different identities. People can hide behind screen names and IDs that have nothing to link them to their real identity. There is a lot of room for anonymity because people can write whatever they want about themselves and there is rarely anyone who checks it. They are only words on a screen or a character in a game.
But so what? Is anyone being hurt by this anonymity? Do you really need to know who you are talking to when you get on AIM? Many Internet users do not even think about the fact that the other people on the computer are anonymous. My fiancée says he never even thought about the fact that the person he is talking to on Facebook might not be who they say they are. There have been days when he thought he was talking to my sister, Hannah, but he was actually talking to me. That’s no big deal to him. But it can be.
For kids who get on Facebook or Myspace and start talking to every person who sends them a friend request, anonymity can be dangerous. People who use these social networking websites as the base for kidnapping or sexual harassment will often set up an account that describes them as another kid. Because these children are not thinking about the idea that someone could be a threat to them on the Internet they will share personal information that allows these perverts to find them off the computer.
The Internet is causing an identity crisis. Not the kind that makes people question who they are. This crisis causes questions about who everyone else is. Stop and think about it next time you get on Facebook chat, or even WordPress. Who is writing and who are you really talking to? Who is hiding on the other end of cyberspace
How Many People Do I Know? November 12, 2009
Posted by singings21 in Uncategorized.Tags: Facebook, Twitter
add a comment
What is the relationship capacity of the human brain? How many people can the brain handle relationships with at one time? Certainly the number is limited, but how limited? Do these numbers change in relation to the depth of the relationship, or is the number set?
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar came to the conclusion that the human brain can only handle 150 social connections. He studied humans and apes and watched as ape communities grew to have about 50-55 members. He figured that since the human brain is larger, it could handle more connections and psychological studies proved his theories correct. What he didn’t count on were Facebook and Twitter.
I currently have 131 friends on Facebook. If I add in my family and future family (after I get married in January) who are not on Facebook I will have over 175 social connections. That does not even begin to span the friends I have from church and work, who are either not on Facebook or whom I have not yet found on Facebook. I would have to say that Facebook has done something to Dunbar’s theory. How did this happen?
Social connections built through the Internet require a different kind of brain power. Being friends on Facebook does not necessarily mean I talk to these people every day. Some of them I have never met in person, so they do not require my time for activities off the computer. The relationships are kept up with short notes here and there, comments on a picture, or just a quick hello on my main page. And when these relationships move to Twitter, they do not even require my time explicitly. The posts are there for the whole world, for anyone who wants to read it or finds the information relevant.
The social connections Dunbar were referring to in the late 1990′s were still deeper than what is available today. While the Internet had opened some doors, it had not quite developed to this point. Connections today are much easier to make and keep, but on a totally different level than our forefathers knew. They are often made with a click of a button that says “add” and a “hello” written on someone’s wall. They are kept with notes about pictures or comments about a person’s status. With the technology of today there is a capacity for a greater amount of social connections.
singings21
hymerhasalison
spete
