Ruggiero 1
Gina Ruggiero
Quinn Warnick
English 213
October 24, 2007
Friend Request Pending
The other day I needed to talk to a high school friend. Instead of picking up my cell
phone, I walked over to my computer, turned it on, and logged onto Facebook. This action and
way of thinking has become increasingly common for me ever since I came to college. Why
shouldn’t it? I can contact my friend going to school in California and it doesn’t cost me a dime.
Social networking sites, besides saving money, also have many other good qualities about them.
Nothing is perfect, they have their vices too. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use social
network sites either. When using social networks you need to keep an open mind but at the same
time remember that not everyone online is trying to be your friend.
I Am Who I Say I Am
One of the many appeals to social networking is that you get to be who you want to be.
According to Jayne Gackenbach and Heather von Stackelburg in the book Psychology and the
Internet, “We all have many aspects of self, in addition to the experience that we are a unified
whole” (56). To illustrate this I will use an example from my own social networking experience.
Ever since I was twelve and visited my aunt in Florida, I have loved surfing. I like everything
about surfing; the boards, the music, and of course the sport. Growing up in Iowa there are very
few chances to meet other people who love surfing too. When I was part of the social network
Myspace, I was part of a group for surfing along with a group who liked to watch musicals.
Ruggiero 2
Social Networks allow people to express all aspects of themselves. For some people, social
networks allow them to express themselves in ways that they would never do in real life, for
example the cheerleader who likes to play Dungeons & Dragons.
I’m sorry if I offended anyone with the last example. Not only did I stereotype
cheerleaders but I also stereotyped people who play Dungeons & Dragons. Please don’t hold
this against me though; it was an idea I was engrained with when I was little. Just as I’m
engrained to think that the skinnier one is the healthier they are and that if someone shows up to
work disheveled they are unclean and lazy. These stereotypes are just standards set by society.
In the online world of social networking there are different societal standards that need to be
followed. “Appearances – such as gender, race, and whether you are attractive or not – are
irrelevant. Everyone has an equal voice and is judged by the same standards: their words” (Suler
4).
Figure 1 is a picture of my friend Julia. I created a Ning site, a
social network, for my dorm floor and this is what her profile picture
looks like. If you don’t know my friend Julia, there is little that you can
determine about her from her picture. If her name were different, like
Taylor or Andy, it would even be hard to tell if the profile was of a boy or
a girl. This is why there are different standards for people
communicating out in the public and those online. The nice thing for Julia is that she can tell
anyone anything about her and not have to worry about being stereotyped.
Too Good to Be True
Ruggiero 3
Social Networking sounds like a utopian society, people aren’t stereotyped and everyone
gets along just fine. If this is true, why is the idea of social networking a debatable issue between
families and friends? The fact is very simple; people aren’t getting along just fine. Let’s take a
look at the picture of Julia again. This picture barely reflects a person. If it weren’t for the
outline of a head, we would be talking about a box, not a person. Experts call this way of
thinking dehumanization. “Dehumanization occurs whenever the other is seen in any way less
than human” (Rossiter Jr. and Pearce 156). It is easy to see how people can fall into the mindset
of dehumanization online. There are no physical cues, such as touching and facial expressions, to
help you bond and “create a history” with the person (Suler 4). Without these physical cues that
we get everyday with people we talk to face to face, how will our body know we are talking to
someone online without them?
If we feel that the people we talk to online aren’t really people, than how are we going to
treat them? We are going to be much more open with the things we say to them. This can even
include bad things we say to them. We don’t know the concept of conscience because a
computer screen can’t have a conscience. With this idea, there has been a great increase in
preditation and harassment on the Internet. The one I am going to talk about, that has to deal
with college students the most, is harassment. Psychology and the Internet talks about one
instance of harassment that happened in 2002. Ghyslain Raza took the school’s camera
equipment and created a video of him reenacting a scene from Star Wars. Later other students
found it and posted it on the Internet, causing humiliation for the boy (Gackenbach 46). This is
an example of not only harassment but also bringing the flawed outside world into the utopian
virtual world. Here people were purposely trying to attack and judge someone else.
Ruggiero 4
Now What?
Not everyone on social networks are this cruel. Actually, there are more nice people out
there than bad people. Things like the above do happen and it is only smart to be prepared if
they do. The way I chose to fight this problem is on my social network I only let friends see it. I
have a policy that if I don’t know who you are you can’t be my friend. Also, on my Facebook
page I have a small amount of information about myself. I like to think that if someone wants to
know something about me they can just ask. This way I know nobody will get mad at me and
say something nasty to me just because I was different than them.
Some people think that this approach is extreme and defeats the whole purpose of social
networking. For people who still want to meet new people online, just remember that there is
another person on the other side of the computer. Just as you are real so are they. Also, be
careful, you never really know with whom you are talking to. Even though you are keeping an
open mind, they may not be.
Social networks have their good qualities and their vices. People are unpredictable and
since the Internet is run by people that makes it unpredictable too. It is always a good idea to be
prepared for anything, this is just like real life. A couple of years ago I would have never
predicted that I would be talking to my best friend in California over the Internet. Yet, I
wouldn’t have predicted that she was going to school in California either. Life is unpredictable,
online networks even more so. Just keep that in mind next time you are facebook stalking your
friend and the boy she likes.