Beth Pickard assesses the new superficiality of relationships due to
social network sites
Over the last few years technology has exploded to such a degree that we live in a world of absolute and instant communication, unbounded by time or space. It encompasses almost every aspect of our lives- now contributing to the making and building relationships.
Social networking enables us to be in constant contact and build substantial relationships with people we have never even met. Without a doubt this capability is nothing short of beneficial, both in our private and working lives, however it is this that makes me question whether social networking results in the portrayal of inaccurate relationships and indeed inaccurate and idealistic images of ourselves. Are we all contributing to an online world of fake identities and fake relationships that then shape our judgements of real people and real relationships in the real world?
Years ago, if you met a guy at a party the next you would hear from him is via letters which would take days to travel down the country before you travelled miles to see each other again, whereby you may then be like ÔÇÿactually, not too keen, sozÔÇÖ. But at least this decision was based on knowledge of getting to know the real person. Today you can meet someone out, and without even exchanging more than a name, you can log straight into Facebook and access every little detail about them. You can see where theyÔÇÖre from, how old they are, their relationship status, which of your friends knows them, and what they do. Then with slightly more thorough stalking (and as a generation we are unashamedly expert at this activity) suddenly you know what hair style they had two years ago, that they have a pet chinchilla, that they got wasted in Glam last week and that once, a year ago, they may or may not have gone out with that awful girl from your seminar (cue more stalking). Assuming a lack of privacy settings, you can basically see every behavioural flaw, trait and opinion of what you only assume to be genuine aspects that make up this personÔÇÖs life, taken as fact to make an executive judgement on them.
Through personal experience I can safely say that these misjudgements can go two ways depending on the way in which you mould your individual social network account. On the one hand there are people who take a ÔÇÿdonÔÇÖt careÔÇÖ attitude about the implementations of the content on their personal page. TheyÔÇÖll happily upload and be tagged in uncompromising photos. TheyÔÇÖll write status updates and tweets on every thought that enters their heads and just generally display their every opinion to the eyes of anyone who comes across them. Now IÔÇÖm all for being honest and open but when strangers, and not to mention potential employers, take this as a direct reflection of you as a person, it may not go down as well as if they met you in person and realised that youÔÇÖre actually pretty reserved and well mannered. In contrast there are people who edit and tailor their page to the extent that on meeting them in person you donÔÇÖt recognise them, whether through the images they display or the personality they put across.
We have never been more accessible yet through social media, we have also never been more detached. It is a form of escapism where users can transform their lives to how they wish to be perceived, turning our lives into dramas or comedies and as a result genuine relationships become warped from those of reality. Our social sites show we are real, as if without everyone seeing or reading about our lives, we donÔÇÖt have one, and thus often we try to show it as more of what we want it be and less of the stark reality. Hopefully as more older people use social networking as a genuine social reference, the younger generations will follow suit in order not to be wrongly judged. Or maybe we can just make do with good old fashioned conversation.
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