Facebook announced recently that it now has over 2 billion monthly users. This makes his "population" larger than hers Chinas, the USA, Mexico and Japans. His popularity, along with the influence he exerts on society, is now undisputed.
But for too many, the experience of actually using the site varies somewhere between them addictive and annoying. A new survey shows that the reason for this is very simple.
Why:
What happens to others people it's about us, just like how we feel about them.
For Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg and his colleagues, the ethos behind social networking is simple. It seeks to "empower people to build a community and bring the world closer together."
Offering people the ability to connect with friends and share important content, aims to strengthen relationships and social ties.
The fact that this is a rather idealistic picture of our society has not prevented the company from booming. However, looking at what people are doing on the site, how they interact with each other and what they feel about the behavior of friends and acquaintances, it shows that the truth is rather more complicated.
Silent observers
The survey carefully examined a selected network with more than 100 Facebook users. The research findings show how we continue to use the site and stay connected to people through it, even though our "friends" often harass or generally offend us.
The amazing thing is that to challenge or sever ties, we continue to use Facebook to monitor them silently - and so perhaps we can have the pleasure of judging them.
In other words, Facebook reflects the dynamics at the heart of all real human relationships. Just as in offline life, people try to open and connect with each other, while at the same time they have to face the everyday frictions of friendship.
One of the most remarkable things the research shows is the large number of people who said they were often offended by what their friends posted. Posts that provoke feelings of injustice, or insults are about extremist or strong political opinions (racism, homophobia, political opinions) and are made (bad lies) to skip the daily routine but also for involuntary or voluntary self-promotion.
Why are we doing this?
The reason why all of this is due to a number of factors inherent in the type of communications technology that Facebook represents. First, there is a specific type of diversity that exists in people's electronic networks. That is, a diversity of people from different areas of each one's life gather in one place.
In Facebook, you write your message without knowing who will read it, but knowing that the potential audience will include people from different areas of your life who have a range of different values and beliefs.
In face-to-face conversations, it is possible to talk to your father, co-workers or primary school friends in separate settings, using different ways of communicating. While on Facebook everyone will see your same side, as well as read the opinions of those with whom you connect.
This means that people engage in personal conversations in a much more public place than before and that the different value systems of all these different "friends" can easily come into conflict.
But the nature of the links people have on Facebook means they often can not just escape from those who find embarrassing or insulting publications.
For example, if a colleague or a relative is insulting you, there may be some reasons for work or family responsibility, which means you will not want to delete them from your friends.
So the members of the social network, make subtle changes to settings them on the website to limit posts they find offensive from appearing in their news feed, without causing conflict.
However, none of the survey samples reported that they reduced their use of Facebook due to frequent controversies…. during "pull me and let me cry."
The survey was conducted by The Conversation
The additions are ours…
