Facebook as an Imagined Community

Yesterday’s class discussion on how Facebook shapes our perception of reality has led me to seek a more critical understanding of my own choice not to participate in this online community. The use of this networking tool is so pervasive that it is quite unusual to meet someone of our generation who is not a registered user. I have withstood considerable peer pressure to join, rejected numerous offers to create an account for me, and responded to incredulous questions such as, “You’re not on FB? Are you a real person??” and “We’re not really friends until we’re Facebook friends.” While I appreciate the convenience with which you may form and maintain contacts, I view the majority of these connections as being contrived. Most of the “friends” in your network are not people whom you keep in touch with regularly on a more personal level (if at all), and many of them are simply acquaintances who upon further consideration, may not even really be considered a friend. My standpoint is that an online medium such as FB is not necessary to affirm relationships. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always believed that the people who are important to you are worth the time and effort to make more personal connections, rather than indiscriminately and impersonally broadcasting news and salutations to everyone in your network. My choice not to participate on FB is a way of filtering and limiting news of myself and others only to people whom I have a genuine interest in maintaining relationships with.

Our class discussion led to an interesting conversation with a classmate about the way in which FB has changed the nature of our interactions in regards to what relationships and news we perceive as being “real” and salient. My classmate admitted feeling a stronger sense of community with people she is connected to on FB than with someone she has interpersonal interactions with on a weekly basis, simply because FB allows one to know other people’s business even if you hardly have any direct contact. In essence, FB has had such a profound impact on the way that we connect with others that for some people, random acquaintances online whose business you know seem more real and have a more salient presence than someone that you interact in class with on a weekly basis. There is a sense of satisfaction derived from knowing other people’s personal information, such as relationship status – even if it’s not really your business – such that for our generation, things are not considered “official” unless it’s stated on FB, and any changes are immediately speculated about and blown out of proportion.

Our perception of our connections to others has been radically altered from what it was 50 years ago, or even presently in a less-developed part of the world, where interpersonal communication is the primary form of communication. We can understand the Facebook phenomenon that has gripped American society through the concept of the “imagined community,” as coined by Benedict Anderson. He views a nation as being a community that is “socially constructed, [and] imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.” This community is described as being imaginary because it is not and cannot be based on interpersonal interaction. Members of even the tiniest nation will never know most of their fellow citizens, but they are bound by images of their affinity. Many of these tenets are true of Facebook networks as well. Our reliance on an online medium in order to affirm relationships is very telling. The sense of communion that one derives from their FB connections is for the most part imaginary because of the lack of actual direct contact with the majority of people in your network. A feeling of belonging is engendered by knowing others’ business, regardless of the impersonality with which the information was obtained. Because of the ease with which we can maintain connections through social networking tools such as FB, I fear there is less incentive to make more genuine, personal connections with old and new contacts.

I hope nobody reading this will be offended and view this blog post as an attack on FB, MySpace, etc or their users. These thoughts have been brewing for the last 6 years since FB first came to my college campus, and I find this forum a stimulating one in which to explicate my thoughts.