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Facebook as voyeurism
By Sarah KehrbergPage:
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“I have something to tell you, Emma; some news.”
Kehrberg
“Good or bad?” said she… . “Let me know it all.”
— Jane Austen
In a scattered world in which families and friends commonly settle down into lives far from each other, Facebook makes sense.
It is easy to share news and photos via Facebook. Grandparents can watch their grandchildren grow up. College friends can attend each others’ weddings, see babies just hours old and view vacation ramblings.
With 400 million active users, Facebook, a social networking website, is a cultural institution.
News, whether of large import or not, disseminates quickly. Anyone with an account on Facebook has a “wall” on which to write (or post) anything. People who have been approved as “friends” can read your wall and comment. When your daughter loses her first tooth, you get a new job or try a new recipe: This can all be posted, with optional accompanying photo, on your wall for friends to see.
Facebook also makes advice readily available. Did your daughter get gum on her skirt? Ask your friends how to get it off, and you are likely to get reliable remedies. Is your 3-year-old still not potty trained? If you are brave enough to ask for advice, you will get it.
Surely, Facebook won’t last forever. But in the meantime, how has Facebook changed our idea of social networking? What has it done to our definition of friend and friendship?
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan first used the phrase, “the medium is the message.” So what kind of message does Facebook present? How are we conducting our relationships within the confines of that medium?
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