Is Social Media Really Social?

Is social media redefining traditional societal roles and bringing together people from different societies or is it alienating them? Society may be experiencing a shift in it’s traditional communication channels.  In effect we can almost always communicate whenever, wherever with whomever we wish to communicate with because of the rapid development of technology. The question however remains as to whether the increase in communication channels and it’s ubiquitous nature translate into a more social society. Are people vibrantly communicating with each other through these channels or are they shying away?

Social media, social networking, virtual friendships and communication: Thanks to the digital media explosion, these words are now terms used to describe our forms of communication and acquiring information. Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, micro blogging, wikis, podcasts, rating and social bookmarking. These forms are not only changing the media landscape and how journalists/media and society are utilizing social media. They also influence the social interactions in society.

Despite the differences in the different age groups that exist in society, social media networks such as Facebook, blogs and YouTube may be blurring the differences and creating new social groups with their own way of interacting. On the other hand is society prepared for this change? Is it okay for parents to be friends with their teenage children on Facebook? Would high school students ‘follow’ their English teachers’ tweets?

“The gap between them is widening rather than closing”, says Professor Dr. Evers from the Centre for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, as he describes the older and younger generation. The older generation hardly uses or does not use social networks at all. This age group prefers to use emails to communicate. Dr. Evers says that the age groups move in different worlds and thus it becomes difficult to socialise with them even if they are linked to social networks.

Against Parents on Facebook

Some Facebook users have introduced Facebook groups to campaign against parents joining Facebook. At the‘Myparentsjoinedfacebook.com’ website, they have gone a step further. They officially declare your life over if your parents or your crazy aunty Ida joins Facebook. They offer reprieve and a chance to get back at them for what they believe is an invasion of privacy. Well is it? Or is this a question of convergence going a step further and converging cultures?

Surprisingly, it is not just the older generation that is shying away from using social media,  a good number of the younger generation e.g. under 30 years who are considered as the information-seekers refuse to be sucked in to what one of them, Miss Hartwieg, describes as a ‘cult’.

Social media may not be that social after all. Many people are beginning to ask questions on privacy and whether it is really necessary to be connected to friends around the world. How much information should one put out on the World Wide Web for all to see? According to the Pew Research centre, more than two-thirds (71%) of social networking users ages 18-29 have changed the privacy settings on their profile to limit what they share with others online.

Miss Hartwieg, a student at the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg refuses to join ‘the social media network bandwagon’. She is only connected to Xing, which is purely for exchanging professional information – a platform to stay in contact with business people. She describes social networks such as Facebook as boring and fake. “Isn’t it funny, that a word like ‘Facebook friends’ even exists?”, she asks. “The operative word is close. Honestly, who knows all his/her 200 ‘Facebook’ friends?” Miss Hartwieg insists that she still maintains communication with whoever she wants without the networks and saves a lot of time, otherwise spent on face book ‘spying’ on other people’s photos. She offers one solution – media literacy.

The world’s internet users spent 110 billion minutes on social-networking sites in April, double the amount of time compared to a year earlier, according to the most recent monthly data from Nielsen. Nearly a quarter of all time online is now used to keep up with friends (and sometimes strangers).

Facebook doesn’t change anything

“I have information overload anyways, so I’m rather thinking of reducing time spent on the Facebook than joining yet another fashionable network and wasting even more time there”, says Natalia Karbasova, a student at the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg from Russia. She is connected to Facebook, Xing and a Russian clone of Facebook called Vkontakte. She joined Xing purely to get in touch with business people. These networks also help her connect and trace the lives of her friends. She checks Facebook and Vkontakte everyday but she is quick to add that she intends to reduce time spent on them. “Communication on Facebook doesn’t change anything, it’s just the same people you would be communicating with anyway, but rather through a different channel”, offers Natalia.

The private has become public and it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between the private spheres and the public sphere. Antonio Cascais, a freelance journalist with different radio and TV stations in Germany summarizes this in one word: pollution! He, however, recognizes the importance of the internet and social media. He concurs that the internet is a means of getting and giving information. He however argues that there is an illusion. “I want to use it but not be used by it”, he retorts. He believes that we are not using social media but that social media is using us! He cites an example of Facebook taking up a lot of one’s time and even worse disclosing one’s private affairs for all and sundry. It is for this sole reason that he minimizes his use of social networks.

We are not using social media but that social media is using us!

Cascais issues out a warning to anyone using the social media networks. He is currently linked to between five and seven social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The freelance journalist checks and updates them every two weeks and spends here between 3-4 minutes. He insists that he only uses them as a platform that links people to his website where they can get more information about him. Cascais compares the digital explosion and the social media networks to globalization.

“One cannot avoid it but one must take precautions”, says Cascais. He points out the privacy problems that have plagued Facebook and advises against posting and publishing everything and anything. Cascais says that the biggest problem of our time is that people are not prepared to handle media and advises younger people to view media critically. He sees only two options “Publish everything or publish nothing!”

The solution may lie in media literacy. Social media is a strong tool but like any tool it must be used for the right job. It makes perfect economic sense to use social networks for marketing and connecting with one’s customers and clients who are increasingly doing everything online. Social networks have also been used for educational purposes and have even saved lives as was the case in Haiti with Ushahidi.

Ushahidi, which also recently won the Deutsche Welle Blog of the year award is a platform built for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. They used citizen-reporting and online mapping by harnessing the power of cell phone text messaging, online maps and ordinary citizens to gather and distribute information in real time. With local cell service down and little chance of getting text messages out of Haiti, the Ushahidi team started by taking mapping information coming in from mainstream media outlets, and via Twitter.  This has also been the case in Gaza, Kenya’s post election violence and the Chile earthquake.

Society will need to be educated on how to use the internet and social networks for their benefit.