Despite my fondness of the social networking site, I have become annoyed with the great deal of consideration Facebook receives from its users, including myself. I think that it is ridiculous that people consult Facebook before engaging in social interaction with one another. For example, before getting dressed many people check to see how many times they have been pictured in a certain outfit. My greatest fear on a social level, has been that someone will describe an article of clothing they have mentally linked with an image of me, in a successful attempt to describe me to someone else. Now I wonder why that should matter at all. Clothes are purchased to be worn more than once.
You may not notice, but Facebook-inflicted mindsets like this are upon us all. Maybe you are a person that doesn’t mind running the risk of being labeled “the girl that wears the orange shirt with the yellow swirls” or “the guy with the striped polo and faded jeans,” but I’m sure that at some point, you have hastily reviewed and un-tagged photos of yourself prior to accepting the friend request of someone you may be interested in. You may have even pleaded for a heinous photo to be deleted because un-tagging yourself simply wouldn’t suffice. But what is the purpose of this? After all, that is YOUR face and outside of the cyber world, people see it every day when you may not look your best.
Maybe you’re a fan of outfit repetition and have hundreds of unsightly photos that you leave tagged. In that case, you probably embrace the Facebook status application as an opportunity to address people and situations that have displeasured you. When you do this, your target audience is most likely never made aware of this and the rest of the Facebook community is left to decipher your compilations of ignorant statements. I am not saying that it is unethical to acknowledge how you feel in your status, because that’s what the application is for. I simply want to encourage you to stray from statuses such as “Meagan is hatin dis chick ‘cross da hallway. Come holla cuz I be on dat all day! I Run Dis righ ova hurr shawty,” and construct more literate statuses such as “Meagan is displeased” or some variation of that. Or why not actually have an actual discussion with the source of your frustration? Maybe it was all a misunderstanding?
Though I have mentioned a few trifling truisms associated with being a part of the Facebook community, the network itself really has its positive aspects. It is our job to utilize the network without allowing the network to dominate our social behaviors outside of the cyber world. We must challenge ourselves to repeat outfits, leave undesirable pictures tagged, control the emotional instability we put on display via Facebook statuses, etc.
Meagan Allen is a sophomore majoring in Political Science.
1 comment:
I love how you managed to intelligently describe ignorant activity. Kudos.
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