Sign in or 
Share this
Koobecaf by Amanda Ball
The young American culture has had an interesting turn of focus in the past few years that has altered some aspects of their society. This focus, which previously may have been directed toward spending time with friends or recreational activities, is now centered on Facebook. This altering website may not seem to have much of an effect on the overall society, but take a closer look and you can see that everyone involved has, in some way, been affected by this virtual social network. What’s most interesting about the site is its perpetual focus around statuses and the many ways people utilize them to express themselves.
When someone subscribes and makes an account with Facebook, they are given the ability to change, update and alter their status to anything at any time. There are few limits for the material that can be posted as the status but the Terms of Use administered by Facebook explains that users may not “upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.” It seems as though these guidelines aren’t strictly enforced as shown by some users who use offensive or demeaning words and phrases in their statuses.
With this nearly-limitless power, users are able to harness a great range of meaning within their status. For some, the status is simply seen as a way to let others know the details of their day, for example, one status may say “John just ate the best pudding, yumm!”, while others use it to express deep thoughts and emotions, one might do this by posting “Jane wishes life had more meaning." Both of these can be seen as a way to get attention but also as an expression of one’s self. Others may see the status as a communication channel for important information, such as “Lisa lost her phone so please don’t call it!” Even further, some users may choose to post no status at all. This freedom provides an explanation to why Facebook has been so successful with the American youth and why it’s become so integrated in their society.
These statuses have a greater impression on the people that create them and those who see them than some may think. With each expression of one’s self, the other users are getting to know more and more about who that person is, even those who choose not to post any status, they are being analyzed by the other users who may just think that this person doesn’t have anything exciting to report, or that they aren’t too involved with Facebook and haven’t logged in recently. Along with these analyses, people make assumptions about the person or their characteristics, which may or may not be correct. The fact that people are unsure if the statuses accurately portray the person is a signal of the freedom that users are able to access. Overall, these statuses give the users just one more tool to communicate their personality in a virtual world.
When someone subscribes and makes an account with Facebook, they are given the ability to change, update and alter their status to anything at any time. There are few limits for the material that can be posted as the status but the Terms of Use administered by Facebook explains that users may not “upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.” It seems as though these guidelines aren’t strictly enforced as shown by some users who use offensive or demeaning words and phrases in their statuses.
With this nearly-limitless power, users are able to harness a great range of meaning within their status. For some, the status is simply seen as a way to let others know the details of their day, for example, one status may say “John just ate the best pudding, yumm!”, while others use it to express deep thoughts and emotions, one might do this by posting “Jane wishes life had more meaning." Both of these can be seen as a way to get attention but also as an expression of one’s self. Others may see the status as a communication channel for important information, such as “Lisa lost her phone so please don’t call it!” Even further, some users may choose to post no status at all. This freedom provides an explanation to why Facebook has been so successful with the American youth and why it’s become so integrated in their society.
These statuses have a greater impression on the people that create them and those who see them than some may think. With each expression of one’s self, the other users are getting to know more and more about who that person is, even those who choose not to post any status, they are being analyzed by the other users who may just think that this person doesn’t have anything exciting to report, or that they aren’t too involved with Facebook and haven’t logged in recently. Along with these analyses, people make assumptions about the person or their characteristics, which may or may not be correct. The fact that people are unsure if the statuses accurately portray the person is a signal of the freedom that users are able to access. Overall, these statuses give the users just one more tool to communicate their personality in a virtual world.
|
Amanda25 |
Latest page update: made by Amanda25
, Sep 20 2008, 11:19 PM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by Amanda25
view changes - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
None
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
