Disclaimer: I’m not sure if any of this really makes any sense… it’s mostly a lot of questions.
What is it that makes use human? Is it our minds? An imagination? The fact that we build complex tools to help us live day to day lives? Is it language? Our ability to plan ahead? We have big brains, but does that make us smart? There are undoubtedly many things that make humans unique among animals, things that most believe put us at the “top of the food chain”. We dream up elaborate plans and alternate universes, and share these experiences and ideas with large groups of others. Our ability to maintain large social networks is another hallmark of Homo sapiens sapiens and we’ve come so far as to create an entire virtual world, one where people can interact in real time with others across the globe by sharing photos, messages and “pokes”.
In our attempt to measure what it is that makes us human and explain how we’ve come as far as we have in the evolutionary journey, an interesting correlation has been noted that relates neo-cortical size to group size. This indicates to researchers in London that it is our complex brains that have allowed us to develop complex societies. Among primates, group size tends to be related to the amount of social grooming that occurs; that is, chimps spend time picking insects from each others fur, and stroking each other to build social bonds and expand their network of family and friends. It has been suggested that the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on a more efficient means of social bonding; that to spend that much one-on-one time with everyone in a network the size we choose to maintain would leave no time for defending ourselves against predators, or finding food and shelter. It has further been suggested that language is uniquely equipped to fill this role; that chit-chat and gossip have taken the place of physical social bonding, and we can now bring ourselves up to speed on the behavioural characteristics of those around us by spending 60% of our time talking about relationships and personal experiences. Language is the new social grooming. Turns out gossip and seemingly meaningless small-talk has it’s place after all!
The advent of the internet has allowed us to broaden the scope of these networks even more, keeping in touch with people miles away through e-mail, instant messaging and personal webpages. Digital news feeds that are updated constantly keep the world up to date, and everyone can put their own individual spin on current events by updating their own blogs, or myspace pages. Facebook seems to be the new time-saver for gauging behavioural characteristics and keeping in touch across distance, and even with those close to home. Everyone we know whether they’re merely acquaintances or life-long friends are on an even playing field in this new digital medium, and global networks grow ever more complex.
So, what do we do when there isn’t enough time in a day to do everything we need to do to survive and catch up on the gossip and current events milling about our social networks using “conventional” means like a phone call, or personal e-mail? We check our facebook news feed, and write a witty message on friends’ walls to keep stroking each others egos and making ourselves and others feel popular and wanted. What used to be necessary for forming social bonds is now reserved for the most intimate of relationships, and even grazing the arm of a stranger on the subway or in a crowded elevator feels somewhat risque. Have our social networks grown so large that a mere phone call or personal e-mail costs too much precious time that we’ve developed expansive and seemingly detailed tools like Facebook and MySpace to replace face-to-face interaction?
It seems convenient, doesn’t it: by spending 5 minutes here and there browsing our “friends” pages, flicking through photos and reading mini-conversations they had with others we catch up on the trivial gossip and small-talk essential for the survival of our social infrastructure from the comfort of our own home. We can portray ourselves however want by posting details, photos and stories about our lives that to our eyes make us seem appealing and popular… someone others would want to know and be friends with. We can measure popularity by the number of invites we receive, or whether we’re featured in photos in the “cool kids” albums. Why is it then, that as these avenues for social interaction become further reaching and more detailed, we find ourselves increasingly isolated from those we’re supposedly bonding with? Facebook cuts down on the amount of time it would take for me to really keep in touch with the 100s of friends I supposedly have, but can I really call them relationships? It’s a novelty to see how friends I haven’t seen since the age of 8 have turned out, and what they’re up to but how different would my life be had I never seen them again?
Maybe Facebook is the next big thing in social bonding, but how much is lost in translation when we move to a type of communication that’s so far removed from peoples’ true nature? My friends have all been reduced to a 3×3 inch icon, summarized by their interests, and classified by institution on a blue and white template. I overheard the other day in the library, two girls gossiping; a conversation that ended in awkward silence when a story being relayed by one was cut off by the other, as she’d “seen the photos on Facebook, and read Matt’s post on her wall”. Is a broader social network really worth the loss of resolution occurring within one-on-one relationships?
Are avid Facebook users the forerunners of a new social reality where people exist only as they can be perceived by other soul-less virtual profiles, while those choosing to cultivate real relationships the “old-fashioned way” are left out of a new cultural revolution? Or is this new time-saving trend a detrimental effect of our social evolution? As I glance about the library, I see more students checking their Facebook pages than studying; and rather than exchanging phone numbers or even an e-mail address with new acquaintances, people now agree to look each other up on Facebook. A study ironically posted on Facebook about where it’s users seem to be found in large proportions showed that smaller communities are more likely than large ones to use social media like Facebook to keep in touch. Is this because those socially isolated in smaller communities find these avenues of expanding their networks accessible, and more appealing? Or similar to the spread of language in small groups, could they be the first to really implement this type of communication in a large scale; cultivating relationships and expanding their social networks using new forms of digital media?
What then, will become of small talk, gossip and chit-chat? As room-mates chat on MSN from opposite ends of the couch, are we losing our desire to meet for coffee or chat on the phone until our ears literally burn from being pinned against a handset? Will talking face to face go the way of physical closeness- and become reserved for only the special people in our lives? Will former signs of friendship and camraderie become misconstrued as intimate advances? TAs and teachers are noticing the way instant message shorthand, and internet lingo creep into students’ writing; are these the first signs of a greater evolutionary takeover? If Facebook is to us what Language was to our ancestors; how is the rest of our brain keeping up with these new discoveries of the mind?
If cultural evolution happens so much faster than biological, will our archaic brains be able to keep up with a physically isolated, virtually connected reality?
Facebook, while a seemingly frivolous past time and innocent guilty pleasure speaks volumes about human nature, and how we interact. Even without the copyright, ownership and privacy issues, it provides a lot of food for thought!
I remember being told once in a philsophy/cognitive science class that one of the crucial features that separate human beings from computers (running in the opposite direction to your human-animal comparison) is that humans make better decisions with more information, while computers tend to be overwhelmed by an excess of information.
I don’t think that’s quite right; our brains would be just as overwhelmed by excess data as an Intel processor would be. The difference is that our brains have a secondary algorithm that chucks out whole chunks of mostly irrelevant data so that we can function without being paralyzed by the information overload. (Take your eyesight, for example. The entire field of view is always received by your retinas, but you’re aware of maybe a small fraction of your field of vision.)
What I’m thinking is that our social conventions developed when some analogue of the secondary algorithm was unnecessary in the social context. You only knew so many people in days gone past; you didn’t know too many people, and you could devote a lot of time to each interpersonal relationship. Now, there’s simply too many people, and you know a lot of people you want to keep in touch with, but you also need some control mechanism to prioritize your relationships, lest you be overwhelmed.
When you’re reading a book, you’re seeing maybe a few words in the vicinity of the sentence you’re reading. You can tell that there are letters written on the rest of the page, but as long as you’re reading that given sentence, you probably couldn’t tell what those other letters on the page say. (Unless you’ve memorized it, I guess.)
Same thing is happening with social relationships. You prioritize and reserve physical/verbal/emotional intimacy for those you REALLY want to have around. The rest, you don’t focus as much. You can tell they’re there, but they’re mostly peripheral.
Social networking websites, then, are ingenious marriages of technology and social necessity. I don’t see it necessarily as replacing the old-fashioned way of maintaining social relationships, but as a helpful tool that lets you order (and reorder) your social relationships in a way that you can cope with in a reasonable way.
“I don’t see it necessarily as replacing the old-fashioned way of maintaining social relationships, but as a helpful tool that lets you order (and reorder) your social relationships in a way that you can cope with in a reasonable way.”
What Brian said there is the gist of what I was going to say as well. For me, I find facebook allows me to meet new people – something I would have such a hard time doing before because I’m very shy when it comes to new people. I have difficulty approaching them, but with facebook, after an add it’s so much easier to get to know someone, because you’ve passed that really awkward “hi” stage.
However, it does creep me out that people talk about facebook in regular conversations. I find myself doing it all the time and I laugh when I hear others doing it. I think when facebook starts integrating itself into day to day relationships, and you run out of things to talk about because it’s all been covered on facebook, that that’s where the problem lies. Just like when Kelley said she stopped reading my livejournal just so I would tell her stuff.
My Mum has a really negative view of facebook. In her mind, it taps into the voyeur in all of us, something that she believes isn’t healthy at all. I pointed out that that’s why it’s so addictive, but then she said “well, do you really NEED to know all those things about people based on their pictures and profiles?” The answer is clearly no, but it’s difficult to reject something that’s so tempting.
I don’t think what’s happening with facbeook is anything new though. If you think about it, the same thing probably happened when we switched from snail mail to telephones as a main mode of communication. People back then probably thought “why don’t people just take the time to write letters anymore?” For some reason, our work-oriented society likes faster and more efficient means for absolutely everything, and sadly, I don’t think the fast paced lifestyle that we all lead is going to die down any time soon.
Brian- That’s a really valid way of looking at it! I doubt things like Facebook will ever replace verbal/physical/emotional intimacy among those who we really care about, I guess my point is that these kinds of tools are becoming necessary to manage such expansive social networks we’ve built up through time.
Jessica- Like I was just mentioning… I doubt facebook or myspace, or any other digital way of keeping up to date with others will ever truly replace one-on-one communication; it seems more like something out a sci-fi movie! I definitely agree that the flocking we see towards (and away from) facebook is akin to fuss that probably arose with the advent of e-mail, and cell phones. As we try to go faster, multi-task and be ever-more productive, we need to develop more efficient ways of getting to know people and keeping in touch so naturally these kinds of tools will come about. I guess I’m a little concerned that over time we’ll see “quantity” become more important than “quality” in terms of relationships.
ps- thanks for the link