This is the real world, not the virtual. Here problems and personal feelings exist, but in the realms of social networking they are hidden away in favor of positive ‘likes’ and personality puffery.
In her article ‘Generation Why?’, journalist Zadie Smith attempts to separate the idealistic world of who she deems ‘2.0 people’, and those grounded in reality which she refers to as ‘1.0 people’.
“We have different ideas about things,” Smith said. “Specifically we have different ideas about what a person is, or should be”.
Today’s 2.0 people are beginning to replace and confuse their online identity with the living breathing individual they are.
Facebook does not allow a user to ‘dislike’ items, but encourages users to rate items only within the context of corporate chosen predefined answers. If your personal answer to a question or idea is not within their range of socially appropriate answers, the user must redefine their whole thought structure on the matter to condense complex thoughts and opinions to a mere one-word choice.
“People reduce themselves in order to make a computer’s description of them appear more accurate,” Smith said.
Facebook's privacy policy has cause a ruckus in the news recently, but the majority of users seem unaffected by the change in policy and how their personal information is accessed by hundreds of others. This is mainly due to the unaware user clicking a small check box that is only seen as an impediment to their online clique, rather than as a harbinger of reduced privacy.
In order to mesh with the rest of the online society, individual users adhere to foundations and guidelines set by others to feel a virtual sense of belonging.
Advertising Extravaganza
The individual is being willingly homogenized into a faceless whole that advertisers see as a vast money pit opportunity.
Like cattle ranchers and goat herders, advertising hands are beginning to corral individuals into groups based on the information they willingly post to their online profiles. Like sheep lead to a slaughter, these online social groups are none the wiser because they have been blinded by the idea of social acceptance.
This is the same sense of belonging felt when we engage in group activities in the real world, but the virtual experience marginalizes the connection of individuals to a mere click of a button.
Social Connection
“Connection is the goal,” Smith said. “The quality of that connection, the quality of information that passes through it, the quality of the relationship that connection permits – none of this is important”.
Facebook users will continue to use the site as a way to keep in touch with out of town friends and relatives, even though email and instant messaging still exist, but these relationships will soon become superficial to the whole Facebook experience of online personality forgery.
Superficial opinions and ideas lead to superficial individuals, and superficial people lead to a superficial society. Absolute superficiality corrupts absolutely.
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