Social Networks: Are We Being Carried Down Stream?
leila April 6th, 2008
Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, and the rest: though different websites with distinct aims, they all serve the purpose of connecting an increasingly interconnected generation of youth to one another.
Yet a recent article published in Newsweek also argues that such sites are contributing to the magnifying glass that has become the lens by which a generation of teenagers and twenty somethings examine each others’, and their own, lives.
This lens can be a positive thing. With Facebook and MySpace, it’s becoming easier to keep in touch with long-lost friends, and to share with others one’s thoughts, milestones, and life developments.
But the author of the article suggests that these tools are increasingly becoming used in excess by young people which, on top of the many monikers placed on this generation, she labels as the “Look at Me” generation.
Today’s youth, the author writes, are arguably so consumed with documenting their own lives, and displaying them to others, she wonders if they actually enjoy those parties or adventuresome trips they meticulously photograph, to be promptly published online the next morning.
At their best, social networking sites and image/video-sharing sites let us keep up with the pursuits of friends both near and far. But, as the author points out, they have similarly cultivated a generation of youth that is more self-absorbed than those past. Calling them “masters of their own images,” they’re able to create any impression of their lives they’d like to portray, sometimes to excess. She further highlights the ease with which one can scrutinize or compare others’ lives.
So, while social networking and other such sites are helpful tools to stay in touch with friends, they likewise have forced this generation to confront a very difficult test: the preoccupation with self and, sometimes, the petty preoccupation with others.
Shoghi Effendi, the great-grandson of Bahá’u’lláh (the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith), who led the Faith until his passing in 1957, sheds light upon the difficulties of “ego”:
Life is a constant struggle, not only against forces around us, but above all against our own ‘ego’. We can never afford to rest on our oars, for if we do, we soon see ourselves carried down stream again.
For those of us who use these social networking sites, we face a certain challenge. Do we misuse the “magnifying glass” these sites provide into the intimate details of our friends’ and acquaintances’ lives as a means to judge or criticize others? To compare our accomplishments, becoming a bit too proud of (or, conversely, dissatisfied with) our pursuits in comparison with our friends’? Is our focus on others’ faults, rather than our own? Do we obsess over self and image?
These were the thoughts that ran through my head last week. And as a consequence, I decided to embark on a little experiment.
To be continued in Part II: The Experiment.
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To repeat Shoghi Effendi “Life is a constant struggle, not only against forces around us, but above all against our own ‘ego’. We can never afford to rest on our oars, for if we do, we soon see ourselves carried down stream again.”
It is up to the parents to ensure their children are prepared to win that struggle, to overcome ego and focus on being of service to others. If our whole generations is consumed by this ‘look at me’ attitude the author suggests, it is a failure a long time in the making.
The keeping up with the Jonses of the 21st Century.
I would be inclined to agree, even to the most petty example I’ve observed of “I have more facebook friends than you.”
I tend to use facebook as you say, to stay in touch with friends and I do often submit photos of times spent with friends so we can look back on them. Often we have a night out or an spend an afternoon somewhere and it allows all of us to see the images (and point out how stupid we all look)
That being said, on the whole I agree there is an undercurrent of vanity to all social websites.
Thank you for your comments! Part II will be up shortly, and I eagerly await your thoughts on it– we can continue the conversation from there.
Regarding the latter comment, I agree with the idea of “an undercurrent of vanity” that can exist social networking sites. On the one hand, I think they can, and are, being used for positive pursuits. But on the other hand, it’s easy to get sucked into the bad habits that arise out of them (checking Facebook too often, finding out information we didn’t want to know, being bombarded with the minutia of others’ lives– “So-and-so is baking cookies,” and whatnot).
Here’s the thing: if we’re caught up in the bad habits that arise from Facebook et al, do we abandon them completely, or continue to use them, and shift our mentality and habits instead? You’ll see in Part II the steps I’ve personally taken in that endeavor, but I’m still grappling with the idea. Thoughts are welcome.