My subject that I observed was my eleven year old brother who is half-way through his first year in junior high. Matthew, my younger brother, recently texted me distraught over the fact that his teeny-bopper girlfriend facebook chatted him and broke up with him. Rude! Although they are only 11, this flippancy about starting and ending relationships conveys a lot about our society has devalued relationships through the ever-changing technology. Relationships are starting to happen more and more through the aid of facebook, and if a person doesn’t want to concemate the relationship through social networks, something is wrong with the relationship… Right? Wrong. It can be seen more and more as socially acceptable to use social medias as a way of communicating serious things. The evolution and growing dependence on facebook and twitter to confirm relationships, is causing the devaluization of dating in general. What happened to the days where you would look in another persons eyes and tell them your true feelings? Those days have been replaced with winky emoticons and “pokes” on facebook. As social networks become more prevelant, younger generations develop less adequate social skills, making a truly personal connection these days, nearly impossible.
I agree with this post 100%. I am in a serious relationship and currently "living in sin" with my boyfriend of 2 years. I remember thinking this all the time would I would either talk about my relationship or tell people we were dating. I felt that because of the way society has devalued relationships people would immediately roll their eyes with the attitude "your in a relationship- you and everyone else on facebook" or "yeah today you are". I think facebook in particular devalued relationships by allowing you to say that your in a relationship with so and so. Not only do people put that they are in a relationship with someone when in fact it is just there best friend or something of that source but also people that hardly know each other are suddenly "in a relationship". You also have people who change their relationship back in forth everyday further devaluing what it actually means to be in a committed relationship.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your point. Nowadays, it seems like no relationship is "official" unless it is "Facebook official." It is like you have to announce it to the world so everyone can know about it before it actually becomes "official." With technology advancing so fast lately, it's the only way for some people to communicate, which is a shame. It does seem like younger generations are using technology and social networks as their prime source for communication and the lack of truly personal connections might become a problem in the future.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was in middle school and I had a boy ask me out over AIM instant messenger. Although AIM isn't very popular today, there are plenty of other sites, such as facebook. Now, its facebook that is used to get the details on whose dating and who is single and ready to mingle. The other day I was talking to one of my friends who has been dating a new guy for about two months. I even asked her "why doesn't your facebook say that you're in a relationship?" To be honest, facebook keeps me updtated on everyones status, birthdays, and the latest world news. It is sad to say that websites such as facebook, twitter, google+, and many others are what keeps everyone in 'the know' about the latest news.
ReplyDeleteRecently, I had a good friend of my boyfriends yell at me because I didn't have that I was in a relationship with him showing on my facebook. He took it as me not wanting to be with him and told me that other guys would look at it and try to go for me because I was single. I thought he was over exaggerating a little bit and then I thought about how people talk every day. "do you know if so and so are dating?" "I don't know it's not on facebook so probably not". So many people, including myself rely on their news from social networks. I probably would never have known that Amy Winehouse, Brian Dunn, or even Michael Jackson were dead if it weren't for facebook. I rarely watch the news solely because I will always know what it going on only from others' status updates on facebook. Although it is quite sad, it is also helpful for people who don't like to watch tv or feel as though they don't have the time to see the current events going on in the world.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post and great comments! It is ridiculous as Connie pointed out that a relationship is not official unless it's on facebook. Granted the movie the "Social Network" may not be entirely true but there was a brief dialogue on the relationship status function. It has come to represent more than just single, it's complicated etc. We seem to have the underlying notion that people who don't label themselves PUBLICLY as being in relationships are looking for something else behind their significant other's backs. Think about how many people you meet in a given week. How many do you automatically tell that you're in a relationship? Probably not that many, it's really none of their business. Unfortunately the social construction of facebook seems permeates into every day life and thus it seems that private things are no longer private. Sad really.
ReplyDelete