Whither the Individual?

Whither the Individual?

As we join groups and social networks from affinity sites to Facebook, are we extending and expanding identities, or increasingly conforming to the cookie-cutter profiles demanded of these interfaces? Is the loss of "personal space" and "reflection" so many users complain of merely the necessary surrender of "ego" as we learn to participate as members of a more evolved "collective organism" of "hyper-people?"



     Social networking websites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, have become important mediums for the current generation.  Marshall McLuhan defines a medium as an extenion of ourselves.  These websites have had a large impact on social interaction.  While there are some users of these sites that use them as an extension of themselves, a good amount of users begin to conform to an identical set of interests.  This conformity also leads to a conflict of interest between wanting to protect your privacy and wanting acceptance from the other users of the site.

      Websites, such as Facebook, allow users to communicate with a wide group of people in a manner that would have previously been much more difficult and time consuming.  You can communicate with someone across the world with the same ease as communicating with someone living right next to you.  Facebook "friends" encompass a much larger group than the people you would consider friends in real life.  I will often receive friend requests from people who I only met for a brief period of time.  While in real life it might be somewhat difficult to locate these people if you did not exchange phone numbers, Facebook makes it easy to contact them, allowing you to further extend your identity.  Social networking websites have allowed people to have at least some basic knowledge about a much larger group of people than ever before.
    
     Social networking websites can be a great way to show things that interest you to others.  You can make posts with embedded videos and images to share with your friends.  This can help to better inform people of your interests, "expanding" our identities.  Although this is done by many people, there seems to be a substantial amount of people who conform to a common set of interests.  These people all make extremely similar posts and seem to like all of the same types of music, movies and other entertainment.  I believe this is a result of their desire for acceptance from the other members of the site.  This makes Facebook a great marketing investment, as if the product is well received by some of the more conforming members of the site, their other friends will likely also follow suit and begin using the product.  This can cut down greatly on the costs of advertisement, as much of the information will be passed through word of mouth.

     A frequent complaint about social networking websites is the loss of privacy.  Everything is much more public than it was in the past.  Just by going on Facebook, you can get a very good idea of what your friends were doing on the weekend.  While many complain about the loss of privacy, it is mostly a self-caused problem.  If someone does not want a large amount of people to know something about themselves, they should not post it on the internet, or allow it to be posted by their friends.  I believe that the people who complain of a loss of privacy have a conflict of interests with their want for privacy and their previously mentioned desire for acceptance.  The majority of Facebook users post pictures of their activities online, and some may think that it would be viewed as strange to not display these pictures.  Those who are concerned about privacy may disregard their concerns to be able to display pictures like the rest of their friends.

     If anything, social networking websites have led to an increase of ego and focus on the individual.  Many members of these websites will post uninteresting things that they plan on doing under the impression that other people want to know (ex: a status update saying "going to the mall").  Since the days of MySpace, people at parties have been interrupted by people with cameras wanting to take an excessive amount of pictures to post online.  For an extended period of time in within the last year there was a fad where people on Facebook, predominantly women, would "like" a certain activity. It would then display that they liked this activity on all of their friend's homepage.  These people would often "like" upwards of 100 activities in one sitting.  If there is anything that points to a growth of ego, this may well be it.

     Social networking platforms certainly have their benefits.  They make it far easier to send messages to large groups of people, and can help to give acquaintances a better understanding of each other.  They can also lead to a potential loss of individuality, loss of privacy, and the creation of an overinflated ego.  Regardless, the social networking medium has become ingrained into modern society, and does not show signs of slowing down.