social networks make us ANTI-SOCIAL

The talk of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace is widespread. Everywhere I turn, someone is discussing a social networking site. But are these social networking sites making people antisocial?!

In this article, Millett goes into detail about how social networking sites are turning people into anti-social zombies. According to Millett, there's no reason for face-to-face contact (or even phone contact) when people can text, G-chat, IM, Facebook Chat, transform voicemails to emails, etc.

I must agree. Since my addiction started, I've subtracted direct contact from my life. I don't have many phone conversations and I rarely set up lunch/dinner dates with friends. Why not? There's no reason for face to face communication if I can talk to someone via g-chat. Furthermore, it's a waste of precious time that I can use for studying. Instead of spending three hours at dinner discussing life, I can facebook chat Jane, while I eat a sandwich and study in my room. It's soooo much more convenient.

What do YOU think?

http://momspa.typepad.com/mom_spa/2009/05/antisocial-technologies.html

I think social networks and technology make us more antisocial when it comes to people that we don't know or that we are merely acquaintances with because if you want to a get a quick mesage to someone you don't know that well, you will probably text them or write on their wall rather than calling them or seeing them in person because it's easier for you. This way you don't get to know these people that much better because you are somewhat limiting the contact with them by using social networks. However, there is no substitute for human interaction and I don't think it's realistic to think that social networks make us less social with people we are good friends with. Part of being friend with a person involves doing things together, hanging out, and talking. Social networks helps us speed up converstations if they aren't that important but I don't think they would prevent me from having a dinner with a friend if it was something I wanted to do with someone I liked.

I agree with both sides of this argument. In sixth grade, one of our english classes revolved around technology as the cause of the decrease in face-to-face interaction...and that was before we even knew about these social networking sites! I also agree that these sites do not decrease my face-to-face interaction with close friends because a wall post or text is no substitute for time spent together.

However, this thought popped into my head today. Just imagine a social network similar to one of the first we saw in the class, where people are the nodes, and edges are forming as people meet each other. With all these new forms of lightnight-fast communication and networking tools, these edges must be forming faster than ever. The thought that popped into my head was this global social network with so many dense edges that there is barely any white space on the network. I wonder if the six degrees of separation will eventually decrease to less than six... There are also other factors coming into play with the increasing world population: new people entering the world while others leave, but new technology will also be emerging that could speed up these social connections even more.

I agree with Marissa in focusing on the mere acquaintances rather than good friends. I think that the “antisocial” part can’t be applied to people that are just acquaintances because without something like Facebook I would have no means or desire to talk to most of these people ever again. I feel, at least in my own life, that I haven’t replaced face-to-face time with my good friends, only enhanced communication with my not-so-good friends.

The advent of social networking sites hasn't made us inherently anti-social. If we envision a graph of our society as having edges of varying strength (to differentiate between close friends and acquaintences) I'd argue that it enables us to form many more "weak" links with people we'd otherwise not interact with at all. This gives the appearance of antisocial behavior because the ratio of acquaintences to close friends we have is much higher. At the end of the day, we have just as many good friends as we would otherwise, plus many more people on the side.

I agree, social networks or no social networks I still have pretty much the same face time with my close friends while at the same time I am able to communicate with people I would usually not think of. I kind of see it as an after thought, I make time to have face time with friends but when I am bored and feel like wasting time I'll start texting or facebooking people. Also, i have started many friendships just with social networking that then evolved into a more real relationship, it is much easier to im someone you kind of know that actually call them on the phone. That's just my 2 cents, although my roommate once told me she would never date a guy who could not hold a good im conversation...