Blog #6: Communication Changes Due to Social Networking

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Communication

Information taken from:

http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/facebooks-aggregated-news-feed-has-changed-the-way-people-communicate/


The way society communicates has changed drastically due to the introduction of social networking sites like Facebook. Facebook has provided society with the infrastructure to expand people’s social circles. It does this by providing people with a place to stay in contact with every person that they have ever met. Facebook’s aggregated newsfeed has enabled members to receive a consolidated update of their social circles’ lives in just a few moments and without being in physical contact with a single person. The consolidated updates have also, in some cases, led to a behavioural pattern of possessing tendencies to self promote experiences through the newsfeed (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). This increase of communication without any human contact has led to a number of uncomfortable etiquette issues in both the online and offline spaces. These issues include Facebook’s members addressing what is socially acceptable to know about each other when they meet in an offline space or the “real world”. This constant need for communication has led to people feeling as if they need to be able to communicate anywhere and at any anytime and this has seen the rise of the ‘smart phone’ (AIMA, 2009). As part of research for this conference paper, an online survey was distributed through social networking sites starting with my own contacts on Facebook, Twitter and email. There were one hundred and fifty three respondents with the majority of respondents located in Australia. This survey gathered information regarding how people communicate since the introduction of social networking sites. This conference paper will discuss how Facebook’s aggregated newsfeed has drastically changed the way society communicates.

Communication amongst peers, families, governments and companies is an essential part of a society. Communication can occur in many different forms from face-to-face communication, to mobile communication, online communication, voting or polls, or mass communication (Kotler et al., 2009, p.228). The Collins Dictionary defines communication as “to exchange (thoughts) or make known (information or feelings) by speech, writing or other means” (Collins, 2010). Since the introduction of technology such as social networks and mobile phones communication has been amplified and has become ubiquitous. Much of today’s communication is instantaneous with the delivery of messages being transferred almost immediately. Snail mail has been replaced with emails (Mayfield, 2001), telephone calls replaced with text messaging (Buskirk, 2010) and in some instances face-to-face communication has been replaced with social networking sites (Planeswalker, n.d.). Social networking sites have drastically changed the way people expect to communicate with one another, as people no longer wait days, weeks or months to receive news. Communication has become instantaneous and has enabled people to become more connected than ever before.

Social networking sites like Facebook enable a person to maintain an array of friends in an online setting (Boyd, Ellison, 2007; Kagan, 2008). Facebook allows a person to reconnect with people that they have met in an offline environment or start a relationship with a new person or “stranger” that the person has met only online. According to Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University Britain, humans are unable to maintain meaningful relationships with more than one hundred and fifty people at a time (Hill, Dunbar, 2003). But Facebook has allowed individuals to broaden their social circle from just a handful of people that they see on a regular basis to include old school, college, work and travel friends and any other person that is in their social circle. The survey that was conducted as part of research for this paper showed that Facebook was the most regularly used social networking site. Seventy percent of the people surveyed had a social network that consisted of between fifty to four hundred friends. But in a period of twelve months over half of those people had not seen between fifty to two hundred of those friends in an offline environment. Through social networking sites like Facebook, people have started to expand their social circles but in accordance with Robin Dunbar’s research people are finding it difficult to transfer these relationships into the offline world.

Facebook has drastically changed the way people communicate with one another in particular amongst friends. Facebook’s main focus is about connecting people although you can do a number of other activities on the site such as, reuniting with old friends, sharing photos, organising events, status updates, creating fan pages and buying, selling and trading goods (Nielsen, 2010). When new members first join Facebook they are asked “Are your friends already on Facebook?” (Facebook, 2010). The new member is encouraged to search through their existing email contacts and add any people that they are already connected with. Through these connections Facebook also has the capability to ‘suggest friends’ to the member based on whom their friends are friends with. New members can also complete their education details, which will assist them to build and increase the social circle. Although it must be noted that for any connection to take place the other member must reciprocate that they indeed know the person by confirming the friendship. This process of finding friends through email, school and Facebook suggestion will build the new member’s social network, which will enhance the user’s experience by pre-populating their Facebook home page. This concept of having all of your friends located in one place and accessible at any time is new to society. Previously people would have different groups of friends and use different methods of communicating with them. The implication of having all friends located in one place is that other forms of communication such as phone and text are decreasing in usage. There is also a risk that people not joined to Facebook miss out on aspects of their friend’s lives as they are missing things being posted to Facebook’s newsfeed.

Facebook’s home page is an aggregated news feed of the social network’s status updates and profile updates. At the top of the news feed and the top of every profile, users are asked “What’s on your mind?” in which the member writes a short status update which is then collated into the newsfeed (depending on their privacy settings). This function has led to a rise in self-promotion (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008), where members are posting detailed status updates of what they are up to and in some cases updating their status a number of times during the course of the day (Dubow, 2007). Psychologists have linked the idea of self-promotion on Facebook with narcissistic behaviour (Buffardi & Campbell 2008). According to a survey undertaken by youth marketing firm, Ypulse, sixty percent of college students agreed with the statement “People in my generation are using social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism, and attention seeking” (Grove, 2009). Where members of Facebook increasingly use the site to promote themselves through updating vivid details of their personal lives, using photos to promote experiences or vanity and increasing perceived popularity through friendship numbers (Buffardi, Campbell 2008). The idea of self-promotion has changed the way people communicate as with the assistance of Facebook’s aggregated newsfeed, details of our personal lives can be communicated as a one to many broadcast system.

The aggregated newsfeed performing as a one to many broadcast system has changed the way people communicate with one another. In a few moments, Facebook members can be exposed to a number of daily activities without actually being in physical contact with a single person. ‘Facebook stalking’ has been coined as a term to explain this phenomenon and it has become so common it can now be found in The Urban Dictionary (2010). It defines ‘Facebook stalking’ as “a covert method of investigation using Facebook.com. Good for discovering a wealth of information about people you don’t actually know”. Facebook ‘stalking’ is not always limited to stalking strangers but can also be associated with constantly checking the news feed to ‘stalk’ what friends are up to. Survey results for this conference paper showed that eighty six percent of people surveyed checked their most regularly used social networking site between one and six (or more) times per day. This constant need to check one’s profile and newsfeed reflects on society’s change in the way communication is taking place. Facebook members can experience a feeling of disattachment from society when Facebook is down or inaccessible (Alder, 2009). Members feel a constant need to check in and find out what people are doing, this has become so apparent that social networking has become a pastime or a recreational event (Ridings & Gefen 2004). This constant need to check one’s newsfeed has allowed Facebook to recently overtake Google as the most visited website on the Internet (Arrington, 2010). This does not indicate that members are socialising in their offline environment anymore or any less but it suggests that people are more ‘updated’ when they are communicating with an online friend in the offline world. ‘Facebook stalking’ has led to people knowing a greater amount of information (or strangers in some situations) which has changed the way people communicate with each other in the offline world.

Facebook’s aggregated newsfeed has affected the natural flow of conversations in the offline world. Previously when meeting with a friend or acquaintance the conversation would flow through a number of predictable questions. These questions would assist in gaining an understanding of the activities or the life events the other person had been effected by since the last encounter such as “how have you been?”, “what have you been up to?”, “how is work going?”, “how are the children?”, “how is the wife/husband?” etc. Now, most of these finer details are posted directly on to the newsfeed and the friend is well aware of these events prior to seeing their friend. The survey results for this paper show that respondents know details about their friend’s lives before seeing their friend in person. Now when they see their friend they would discuss what each other had seen on Facebook. But they felt that even though they receive regular news from Facebook’s newsfeed, to be able to receive a more detailed version of events they needed to make one to one contact. A number of etiquette issues have arisen with the introduction of Facebook’s aggregated news feed becoming common in society. It can be an awkward situation when confronted by a person that is on Facebook in the offline/real world, as members are still negotiating how much information is appropriate to divulge without revealing that they have been “stalking” Facebook. The etiquette of discussing offline or in the ‘real world’ what you have learnt through Facebook about a person, is something that is still being experimented with Facebook members. But it seems that if the person is a close friend than it is acceptable to know of the intricate details of their Facebook postings. If it is an acquaintance or a stranger’s profile that has been stalked than it is best to claim no or minimum knowledge of the other person’s life (Dubow, 2007). Facebook has unknowingly changed offline communication amongst friends from an angle of catching up on latest news to more of a conversation about the updates viewed on the newsfeed and the details surrounding these updates (Dubow, 2007). Facebook ‘stalking’ has changed the way people conduct and structure their conversations with friends, this change has also led to a noticeable decrease in traditional forms of communication.

Being constantly updated with friend’s news has also led to a decrease in communication via traditional methods such as snail mail, text messages, phones and emails (‘Social sites eclipse e-mail use’, 2009). According to the conference paper survey, prior to Facebook being a recreational activity, people used text messages or emails as their main method of communication amongst friends. In 2009, reduction of mobile phone use became apparent to the Australian society, in particular Emergency Services, when two young girls were trapped in a drain and decided to update their Facebook status as a replacement to using their mobile phone to contact Emergency Services. Luckily through their newsfeed posting, their social network was able to contact Emergency Services and obtain assistance (‘Trapped girls call for help on Facebook”, 2009). Eighty percent of people surveyed for this conference paper agreed with the question “Do you think the amount of time you call/email your friends has changed since you started participating in social networking sites?”. This dramatic shift in communication has led to telecommunications companies changing the way they structure their mobile phones to ensure they have the capacity to allow for the inclusion of social networking on the move. The implication of this drastic change has led to people not using their phone to communicate through the use of voice calls but using it as a way to communicate through the use of updating their Facebook profile.

The first communication to take place by way of mobile phone in Australia was in 1987 (Yussuf & Brooks 2007). There are now more mobile phones in Australia than there are people (‘Number of mobile phones now exceeds Australia’s population’, 2008). The reduction of communicating via text messages and mobile phones calls has seen a rise of mobile handsets being updated to ‘smart phones’ by Telecommunication companies. Smart phones are not only able to make phone calls and send text messages but they are able to receive emails and access social networking sites through browser access or application access. The phenomenon of the smart phone first started with the introduction of Blackberry and being able to receive emails out of the office (Middleton, Cukier, 2006). Where Blackberry was typically targeted towards the businessman the Iphone (and other similar smart phones) have revolutionalized this communication method by introducing it to the remaining half of society and by including social networking sites. In a survey conducted by the Australian Interactive Media Association (AIMA) eighty five percent of respondents had used their phone to access a social networking site in the last month and forty six percent of responses were checking their social networking sites through their mobile at least once a day (AIMA, 2009). Indicating that there is a genuine rise of people needing to communicate on the move. Due to communication happening at all times through the use of smartphones, it has changed how frequently people communicate with one another and how quickly this news can be posted and spread through their social network.

This conference paper has shown how Facebook’s aggregated newsfeed has drastically changed the way its members communicate. Members have been given the ability to maintain relationships with every single person that they have ever been in contact with. To assist in this new expansion of their social network, Facebook has provided its members with an aggregated newsfeed to ensure members are kept up-to-date with the activities of other members’ lives. Members have actively adopted this new way of communicating and have started posting numerous amounts of times a day regarding their daily activities. Although the etiquette of the newsfeed has led to some uncomfortable experiences in the offline world with the amount of information one should reveal, it has also led to a feeling of being more updated with their friend’s lives. The newsfeed has instilled a feeling of needing to be able to communicate at all times. Which has led to a rise in smart phones, which enable its users to log onto their Facebook pages through online browser access or direct application access. Facebook and its aggregated newsfeed have drastically changed the way society communicates.

How has Facebook changed the way you communicate. What is something positive and negative about this change or changes? What do you think should be done to people that abuse facebook and use it for bullying and gossip? What punishment should be established?