Com 125 Assignment 7-Virtual Social Networking Communites

What is a community? I would describe it as a body of people linked together in some way. This link is created through anything whether it is physical location, similar backgrounds, common interests, etc. A virtual community is one that is linked through the internet. Rheingold defines virtual community as "social aggregations that emerge from the [Internet] when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace (Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? )" While this is generally a respectable definition, I find problems with it, particularly when Rheingold uses the phrase, "with sufficient human feeling." While virtual communities explain a variety of groups interacting over the Internet, this does not necessarily mean that there is a strong bond among these members.

An example of this is with social networking sites. I am an active participant in Facebook and I used to be in MySpace, and I find that these sites, especially MySpace are not good indicators of strong social ties. While they are both examples of communities, they are communities of weak ties. Because people are "friends" on these sites does not necessarily mean that they have met or even interacted in real life.



MySpace is notorious for users having a number of so called "friends" whom they have never met. Unlike other sites, MySpace is a place for people to promote themselves, whether it is bands, politicians, comedians, movie stars or even porn stars. Danah Boyd explains, "While Friendster was irritated by fake Profiles, MySpace embraced this practice. One of MySpace's early strategies was to provide a place for everyone who was rejected from Friendster." There are also a number of commercial profiles on MySpace that corporations developed to promote their products and brands. People are adding these fake profiles to their friend lists to say something about themselves, what their interests are, and connect with others who have the same interests. The result is that people now have a number of "friends" on MySpace whom they are not really friends with. People can now add as many people as they want to their profile and not have to really be friends with them, so MySpace is now becoming a popularity contest to see who can have the most "friends."



I was an active participant in MySpace in high school. I started out with my friends list containing people whom I actually knew. However, that quickly changed as all of my friends started adding these fake friends to their profiles. Before you knew it, they all had 1,323 friends and I only had like 109. I didn't want to seem like a loser with no friends so I began to add more and more people that I didn't know. My MySpace page quickly was plagued by advertisements, as the people who I became friends with used my page as an opportunity to promote themselves by placing their ads on my wall, messages, etc. I got really annoyed with this and eventually graduated to facebook.



Another problem with MySpace and other social networking sites is that every friend is created equal. As Boyd explains, "Because of how these sites function, there is no distinction between siblings, lovers, schoolmates, and strangers. They are all lumped under one category: Friends." Because people on these sites often have hundreds or even thousands of friends, it's easy for those people who are most important to them to get lost in the crowd. The development of "Top 8" friends was these sites' solution to this problem because people could now pick their most valued friends and have links to them right on their profile where they are easily accessed. I like the "Top Friends" feature because it allows me to easily see the profiles of people that I care the most about. It's also nice because it shows to others who your best friends are and what inner circle you are in.



I would contrast my online community of friends through facebook compared to my real life community of friends as being broad and shallow versus narrow and deep. I know of all my facebook friends but I don't know all of them personally. When I communicate with someone who I would only consider a "facebook friend" it is basically small talk, for example, "How was your weekend?" When I am really friends with someone (in facebook and real life) our communication is on much deeper topics, such as our personal thoughts, feelings, etc. Therefore, I would say that online social networking sites are useful in the regard that you are trying to "network" yourself and develop a community of weak ties that may benefit you in finding a job, advancing your career, etc. But if you are looking to develop a community of true friendship, there is no better way to do this than through face-to-face interpersonal interaction.

Sources

Boyd, D. (December 2006). Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. Retrieved 13 October, 2008, from First Monday Web site: http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/

Fernback, J., & Thompson, B. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved 13 October, 2008, from The Well Web site: http://www.well.com/~hlr/texts/VCcivil.html

Various. (6 October, 2008). Virtual Community. Retrieved 13 October, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_communities