Facebook: Exposure, Invasion and Reciprocity.
Sunday, October 4, 2009 by Anonymous
As Daniel Boyd claims, certain acts have been established throughout history (and within varying species) as a means to establish and maintain relationships. It sounded pretty simple for apes- one ape grooms another, and in an act of reciprocity, this act is reversed (so that both apes get groomed). And alas, an ape-friendship has been established, information is shared, and support is guaranteed. It sounds pretty easy.
During my studies, I have read many anthropological arguments over the idea that human friendship is also based on the notion of reciprocity. That is, the relationship between two people is maintained and developed according to equal levels of reciprocity (for example, we might trust someone who shares their secrets with us, and thus feel as though this trust enables us to share secrets with that person. If we did not feel comfortable sharing secrets with that person, the level of reciprocity would not be equal. This other person might feel cheated and there would be no more trust between the two).
However, sites like Facebook problematize this notion. Our actions are updated onto the News-feed of everybody we know. For example, "Jessica" has just changed her relationship status from "in a relationship" to "single". Sure, the information was there already. And sure, it would have been available for anybody to read on her page. But I can't imagine that all of Jessica's 300 friends would have possibly found out (or even cared) had that information not been advertised for her entire social world to see. When information such as this becomes hyper-public and so easily available on Facebook, people want to pay more attention. I agree with Boyd when he claims that this might lead to an imbalance of reciprocity. Before social networking sites were created, I'm sure the relationship dramas of Jessica might have been kept between herself and her close friends. Now, even the acquaintances she met several years ago have the intimate details of her breakup advertised on their homepage. This gives people a false sense of intimacy with someone that they barely even know, and creates imbalances in the levels of reciprocity between "friends". Though this information connects Jessica's acquaintances to Jessica, it does not connect her to her acquaintances.
During my studies, I have read many anthropological arguments over the idea that human friendship is also based on the notion of reciprocity. That is, the relationship between two people is maintained and developed according to equal levels of reciprocity (for example, we might trust someone who shares their secrets with us, and thus feel as though this trust enables us to share secrets with that person. If we did not feel comfortable sharing secrets with that person, the level of reciprocity would not be equal. This other person might feel cheated and there would be no more trust between the two).
However, sites like Facebook problematize this notion. Our actions are updated onto the News-feed of everybody we know. For example, "Jessica" has just changed her relationship status from "in a relationship" to "single". Sure, the information was there already. And sure, it would have been available for anybody to read on her page. But I can't imagine that all of Jessica's 300 friends would have possibly found out (or even cared) had that information not been advertised for her entire social world to see. When information such as this becomes hyper-public and so easily available on Facebook, people want to pay more attention. I agree with Boyd when he claims that this might lead to an imbalance of reciprocity. Before social networking sites were created, I'm sure the relationship dramas of Jessica might have been kept between herself and her close friends. Now, even the acquaintances she met several years ago have the intimate details of her breakup advertised on their homepage. This gives people a false sense of intimacy with someone that they barely even know, and creates imbalances in the levels of reciprocity between "friends". Though this information connects Jessica's acquaintances to Jessica, it does not connect her to her acquaintances.