Do You Really Know Me or Do You Just Facebook Know Me?

Submitted by Zack Barangan on Wed, 02/22/2006 - 2:17am.

"Hey, I know you, we're Facebook friends! Of course, I've never seen you but ..."

If anyone thinks the previous statement is weird/slightly stalkerish, raise your hands. Thought so. Yes, it is a weird statement, but the most disturbing part is, something like that is not so outlandish in this day and age. Because of virtual meeting places like The Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster we've become that much more out of touch with reality (And that much more prone to stalking. C'mon, how many of you have looked up someone you thought was cute in class on Facebook. Even I've done it.) There's just something so artificial about these modes of communication. It reminds me of real estate ads. These people are putting themselves out as products. Users choose the prettiest picture of themselves, and more often than not, fashion their profile so that they become more attractive and "friend-worthy" in the eyes of the online community. They try to capture the entire personality of a human being in one small website profile. Last I saw, whole books could be written on just one person. It's rather disturbing when people try to put their entire lives on their profiles.

My question is, "How can we really know what kind of person Joe Blow is by just looking at their profile?" Sure, he's got a picture where he's got a body like the Rock and the music tastes of a latter day Cobain, but in reality, that picture could be from high school (when he actually did work out) and they could really enjoy Dashboard Confessional. And when it says that he's got 100+ friends, how many of those are really his friends?

The answer is, that you can't really know. Unless you meet the person face to face and get to know them personally you can't know whether this ad they placed of themselves is true to life or not. The problem is, we're getting too used to mediums like these sites. I'm not saying they're completely evil and that no one should use them, I have a profile on the Facebook myself. I'm just saying that nothing can replace good ol' fashioned people to people time.

Cheddar (not verified) @ Wed, 02/22/2006 - 2:21am

Me and Andrew Nusca are real friends.

Believe you me.

Paul Colarusso @ Wed, 02/22/2006 - 10:48am

I couldn't agree with you more. I used to have a facebook profile, but it got too ridiculous for me. So many people are depending on online communities for social interaction these days. Go meet someone the old-fashioned way, liquored up at the bar!

Ivan Pereira @ Wed, 02/22/2006 - 1:15pm

For those who are interested, I wrote an article for the WSN last October about a student forum which discussed the advantages and disadvantages of online communities. I think it is very relevant to Zack's post and might bring up some more ideas to think about.

Dan Smith @ Wed, 02/22/2006 - 1:58pm

I think the exact point of these isn't to replace face-to-face meetings but to facilitate them. I mean, I'm probably the exact last person who should be making these points (a mere 38 facebook friends, all of whom I knew in reality first), but the idea of focusing an online community to your real life community makes "facebook relationships" (as in relationships only on facebook; not 'omg I'll say we're married, isn't that funny!') ridiculous. I can't imagine there is anyone who has what we can consider a relationship solely via facebook (as opposed to other online communities where people across states and countries have no choice but to keep their relationships virtual).

We all go to the same school; we live within twenty minutes of each other; we drink at the same five bars. So I -- er, someone... yeah, someone... -- facebooks pretty girls from class or the dorm. Until, indeed unless, that leads to a real meeting, I don't think anyone is delusional enough to think they actually know the person.

At least I hope not...

Christine Caro @ Wed, 02/22/2006 - 6:19pm

When Facebook first came to NYU, I was so hesitant to join; eventually, my friend just made an account for me. I have come to somewhat embrace it and do sometimes check it (although usually when I get friend requests or someone writes on my wall), but I still get thrown off by the random friend requests or the people who I might have had a class with but am by no means friends with. To go along with this phenomenon and to facilitate facebook friendships, my friend actually had the idea to throw a "Facebook Friends and Family Party" that was actually a huge success. About three of us pooled our facebook lists together and told everyone to bring a few people from their facebook friends, and surprisingly people really did meet some of their lesser known facebook friends and, supposedly now hang out. So although I am quick to reject friend requests from people I don't know, maybe they aren't so bad after all.

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A group blog exploring our media world. Produced by the Digital Journalism: Blogging course at New York University, Spring 2007.

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