Features

As of 2011, over 500 million of us are living our lives within the cornflower-blue-and-white themed webpages of Facebook. For most of 2010, Facebook surpassed Google as the most visited website. We’re over searching porn, celebrities and LOLcats. We’d rather search each other; our friends, families, lovers, ex-lovers, colleagues, teachers and even pets. They can all be found on Facebook. It's not called ‘social’ networking for nothing, with the average user, according to official statistics, having 130 ‘friends’. But can our activities on Facebook really be described as ‘social interaction’? Just how much has Facebook superpoked its way into our world? SIOBHAN DOWNES investigates the face-off between Facebook and the Real World.
 
Social Me, Me, Me-dia
The first thing that any critic of social media will tell you is that Facebook breeds narcissism. How many times a day do you feel the need to update your status, detailing the precise number of squats you did at the gym, that amazing cheesecake you made, or how many A’s you got in your exams? Probably at least three times, with the average user creating ninety pieces of content a month.  Part of what makes Facebook so addictive is that you can reveal ‘what’s on your mind’ at any time without having to wait to be given an excuse to do so. It’s the Real World equivalent of a painfully one-sided conversation – think about that friend who only ever talks about themself – yet Facebook makes this type of interaction perfectly normal and acceptable. The Psychology Department in Canada’s York University recently did a survey on the phenomenon of Facebook narcissism. The survey used Facebook members’ profiles as evidence. With the Facebook profile, users are able to craft a carefully manipulated, idealised, designer version of themselves. They select their favourite bands, movies, novels and hobbies. They proclaim their career, sexuality and religion. They can even be as pretentious as to say ‘who inspires them’. In the Real World, revealing all this information would at least necessitate an actual conversation. On Facebook, it is simply compiled into a convenient list of images and text; everything that you want people to know about the Facebook version of you is there in blue and white. Who cares if it’s not exactly true that you’re a part-time underwear model who loves puppies and North Korean politics? No one’s going to ask questions, they’re too busy working on their own profiles. Facebook: putting the ‘I’ in ‘Generation Y’. 

It’s Complicated
Declaring that you are ‘In a Relationship’ on Facebook has acquired a similar status to the Real World scenario of obtaining a marriage certificate. You both say ‘I do’ (or, you know, click ‘accept’), it’s publicly documented and then you are congratulated by your peers. But the Facebook relationship status has, to some people, become the be-all and end-all of acknowledging a romance. In many cases it is directly interfering in our Real World relationships. A look at Yahoo answers reveals that ‘how do I get my boyfriend to change his relationship status on Facebook?’ is a frequent concern. Take a walk through the Octagon after school on a Friday and you’ll hear smug 14 year olds informing their friends, ‘we’re dating now – it’s Facebook official.’ It’s not just the wee nippers who deem Facebook to be the omnipresent authority on love. Adult newlyweds have been known to take the time out of their wedding receptions to whip out laptops and iPhones to change their relationship status to ‘married’, just in case anyone slyly checking their Facebook mobiles under the table had forgotten. Perhaps most notable of all, however, is the dreaded romantic transition from ‘in a Relationship’ to ‘single’. Once upon a time, in the Real World, heartbreak could be doled out via a single, private text message. Or even face to face, for the more noble players. Our new break-up medium of choice is public humiliation at its most awkward, with nosy ‘friends’ being able to offer their condolences by sharing words of wisdom.
 
I’m CEO…Bitch
While Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg’s business cards might have brandished these immortal words, it is unlikely that your own Real World boss is quite so liberal. But we still find the courage to complain about them online, Facebook-stalk them, and even add them as ‘friends’. The boundaries surrounding professional relationships on Facebook are becoming increasingly blurry. In the Real World, it is relatively simple to keep our personal lives separate from our professional ones. But as S Craig Watkins, an associate professor of media at the University of Texas said, ‘Facebook brings all our different networks and social scenes together.’ And while you may have no qualms about airing your digital dirty laundry for all your online friends to see, what appears on your page can be the difference between keeping a job and getting fired. An extreme case was that of the British Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, Sir John Sawers, whose wife took it upon herself to update her Facebook revealing top-secret details of her husband’s line of work. There was also incriminating photographic evidence of the spy holidaying in his Speedos. Luckily, the British government was able to take the information down from Lady Sawers’ page, making sure that from then on her Facebook was for her eyes only and Sir John was free to die another day. For us minimum wage slaves, however, the consequences of posting inappropriate comments about our Real World workplaces or bosses have inspired the coining of the term ‘Facebook Fired’. Your information on Facebook can even prevent you from being able to land a job in the first place, with employers using your page as a background check of your maturity and suitability for the position. Something to consider before you ‘like’ the page ‘she’s about as innocent as a nun doing squats in a cucumber field’.
 
Lawl. Facebook and the Law.
So, you’ve jacked up your Facebook page with all the privacy settings you can get your paws on so that your nana won’t see that tagged photo of you in which you’re naked with your toga twisted around your ankles. But even with these settings in place, in the Real World, your figurative ass is still not covered. Facebook’s privacy policy states that it will readily disclose any information you share– whether ‘private’ or not – should it be required by law. In the United States, divorce lawyers are cashing in on this, using evidence found on Facebook in the custody courts. Evidence that Mommy was on Farmville when she was supposed to be picking up the kids from school. Evidence that Daddy has been in correspondence with a special Facebook friend named Crystal Creamcheeks. Although this type of ‘Facebook evidence’ has yet to be used extensively in New Zealand, the potential is still there and Facebook is still managing to find a place in our legal system. As of 2009 in New Zealand, court papers can be legally served by delivering them through a person’s Facebook messages, when other methods of contact fail. If you think all this is a bit of an extreme breach of privacy, consider what it’s like in nations where democracy is more fragile. In Nigeria, a man was recently jailed for defamation after using his Facebook status to put a curse on a local political figure. Even though Facebook may give the façade of universal freedom of speech, there is no escaping Real World law. Luckily for us here in NZ, we have the freedom to declare on our status that John Key is a slimy little git, should we so choose. 
 
Wall to Wall
Facebook has provided us with yet another device to add to our long list of communication media. While the Facebook wall has commonly been used for sharing Keyboard Cat videos and fart jokes among friends, in recent times it has come to represent so much more. The humble Facebook wall can now pride itself on being a rallying point for international protest and revolution, a virtual billboard for world issues. It is changing the way the world communicates. Take the recent revolution in Egypt, for example. The people used Facebook ‘wall posts’ to organise protests around the nation, fuelling the fire to a movement that eventually toppled Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt government. Many have since emphasised the role that the Internet and social media play in liberating societies, with one grateful Egyptian father even naming his newborn daughter ‘Facebook’. And even as little Facebook faces a lifetime of relentless bullying and ridicule, her website namesake will continue to claim its role in the promotion of global peace and love. A feature of the website, Peace on Facebook, promulgates the ideal that Facebook promotes peace in the Real World by ‘building technology that helps people better understand each other’. The webpage tracks the number of friend connections made between people of different geographic locations, religions and political viewpoints, such as Israelis and Palestinians, Christians and atheists, and conservatives and liberals. But before Facebook gives itself a congratulatory pat on the back and starts preparing its Miss World 2011 acceptance speech, one blogger’s recent words need to be taken into account: “It is people, not things, that are the tools of revolution”. And at the end of the day, Facebook is nothing but a thing. (With the exception of the one person in the Real World whose name is actually Facebook.)