Why Mainstream Social Networks Complicate Our Identities - Research Proposal Example

Social Media In 1624, John Donne, an English poet wrote the following words, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” (Poemhunter.com). Raspa (1) maintains that this particular line in the poem entitled, ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions,’ emphasizes the interconnectedness of the lives of all human beings. Gripaldo (1) agrees in the sense that as social animals, men are expected to veer towards communal living as his needs and his survival instincts dictate that he should belong to a group. In this regard, a human being is undoubtedly a social animal that is far from being an island unto himself (Gripaldo 1). As such, men are expected to seek ways to constantly build bridges to his fellows and establish relationships amongst the community in which he lives in. The inherent attribute of human beings as social animals has been the primary cause and motive for the establishment of collective groups and communal cliques. Following this instinctive movement to formulate key groups, society has then evolved from one form to another. Roy Posner (1), identified four key stages in the development of communities. These are: (1) the physical stage; (2) the vital stage; (3) mental stage; and, (4) the spiritual stage. The first stage is described by Posner (1) as being characterized by the primitive yearnings of mankind where only survival and personal existence were the key motivations of human action. Additionally, all aspects of the environment were perceived as threats due to the relative untrained and primordial perception and capacity of the early inhabitants. In the first stage, the social consciousness of the people was centered on the tribe as the singular commune existing in their periphery. Posner (1) maintained that during the early times, thinking outside the delimitations set by the tribal unit, practice and tradition is akin to modern-day treason. As such, the mindset of the early civilizations with regards to social acuity has been primarily limited to the concept of a tribe. The second stage is marked by the enlightenment of the individual as they began to have a more profound understanding of their environment and how they can suit their needs according to the change in times. Posner (2) argued that during this stage, people began to engage themselves into their surrounding thereby formulating smaller groups in their community. During this time, tribe members also started to interact with other members of neighboring tribes signifying the beginning of trade and commerce. Due to the awakening, the early people began to notice an opportunity to improve their way of life by mastering his environment and becoming an active player in the communal exchange. This then became the catalyst that spurted man’s ingenuity to discover matter and manner that went on well through time. The third stage is the mental stage characterized by people’s accumulation of knowledge and keen mastery of his way of life. A system of education is likewise formed where the past is ultimately utilized as the main yardstick for future endeavors. Also, this stage is marked by advancements the systems of economy, politics and social interactions. Developments in science, communications and technology likewise exemplify this stage. In this regard, people became more sophisticated with innovative machineries, gadgets and systemic processes. The market was thus inundated with multi-function mobile phones, pocket PCs, intricate gaming consoles and GPS devices. Multi-national business entities became obsessed with marketing strategies, brand positioning and product name recall. But most importantly, society has equally evolved into a new avenue – the internet. The spiritual stage or the final phase of the evolution of society appears to be too distant from every happening to our fast developing world. This stage is deemed as the period of supreme attainment of material possessions as people would veer away from physical objects and seek inner peace and eternal happiness. However, with the relative deficiency of much of the human capabilities, there appears to be quite an extensive period with which people would wallow in the mental stage (Posner 2). The current times appears to be well-within the third phase, the mental stage. As mentioned by Posner (2), this stage is characterized by man’s penchant to enhance and upgrade existent innovations. To be specific, the internet has been the modern man’s greatest contribution to civilization and even such invention is yet to be perfected. Nowadays, people have formed microcosmic virtual existence through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Vimeo, Chatroulette, Stumbleupon, YouTube and Postsecret and in games such as World of Warcraft, Counterstrike, DOTA, Red Alert and Battle Realms. Social media is defined as a form of mass media that takes advantage of digital technologies in communications and internet-based applications in order to conduct conversation or other forms of exchange (Adams 1). In the present times, social media account for a large chunk of societal interaction as it allows cross-borders interaction that has never been possible before (Adams 3). Social Media Today, an online repository of articles regarding social media, has released a report detailing the top 40 networking sites of the world. Facebook, a social networking service launched in 2004 heads up the list at the top spot with 800 million active users as of July 2011. Eldon (1) maintains that the general growth of Facebook is pegged at 65 million page views per day with an average of 2.6 million minutes being spent on it each day, worldwide. MySpace, another social networking service and co-owned by popstar Justin Timberlake ranks at number 2. Emily Steel (1) of The Wall Street Journal states that as of August 2011, MySpace has over 33.1 million unique US visitors. Twitter ranks third in the list carrying 200 million users as of 2011. Business Standard hails Twitter as the ‘SMS of the Internet,’ as users may send and receive text-based posts known as “tweets” of up to 140 characters. The rest of the top 10 are as follows: (4) Linkedln; (5) Bebo; (6) Friendster; (7) Hi5; (8) Habbo; (9) NING; and, (10) Classmates (D'Monte, Leslie 1). With the onslaught of a variety of social networking sites, online network gaming and other similar facilities, social media has become the major resource of many of the current civilization’s needs. Social media allows activities such as blogging, social networking, emailing, chatting, photo and video sharing, event updates, news, entertainment, shopping and even distance education (Adams 31). It is then no wonder why the society tends to spend large chunks of their time devoted to social media. But then again, as any novel concept, social media as a new-age development brings about detriments and certain drawbacks. Among these is the so-called creation of segmented personal identity. Beckland (1) defines it as the naure of social media entities such as Facebook and Twitter to permit their users to create and maintain personalities that may either be entirely different from who they really are or take up a portion of their personality to stand as an wholly different persona. This then is considered as a cause of confusion with a seeming disparity from what is real and what is virtual and the fact that both must be maintained is likewise a cause for alarm. Another problem seen from such social networking service providers such as Facebook and Twitter is the creation of a definite and established character that delimits and ill-defines an individual (Beckland 2). In Facebook, as well as Twitter, members are made to create profile accounts which would serve as their ID in interacting within the facility. Such profile would operate as the “real” person whereas in the existent world, such personality may have actually been left behind as the physical person may have matured and moved on. Furthermore, social media has the capacity of erasing bounds that were usually used to separate familial ties and close relations from the rest of the world (Nath 1). Subsequent times have taught people to shield their secrets and sour thoughts away from the leering eyes of the public. But with the coming of Facebook and Twitter, people have come to express even their innermost and darkest yearnings in partially shrouded statements. Privacy has then been eliminated and secrecy is no longer the tune of the song. But the greatest question in this regard seems to be the abolition of the individual personality due to the creation of an alternate virtual being or beings. Beckland (2) affirms that such situation is really problematic as it seeps through the basic membrane of society – the individual. The situation is simple. An individual possessing full capacity would join a social networking service provider, Facebook, for example. In order to create an account, he must set his profile and input certain required information. But since he does not want to be traced to his native land, he listed another location as his hometown. Also, since he does not want to be identified, he places in a different name somehow close to his own but inputs a different birthday. He then proceeds to fill up his profile by adding on to his interest folder. He sets in books whose title intimidates him, tags movies that the general population has seen, adds a friend or two that he has never met, plants in hobbies he dreams of pursuing and enjoins others to visit places he will never get to see. Then, voila! A virtual person is established personifying the deepest aspirations and greatest fantasies of the human being seated in front of the computer. Why has this occurred? The answer to that is as simple as it could get – peer pressure and a general denial of what a person has in reality actually become. The fact that the internet is horrifyingly present and active from then on until eternity, it has achieved an immortality that keenly surpassed man’s recollection. What then has been placed virtually yonder has been placed virtually forever. There is no erasing and escaping the claws of the internet. It draws blood and it does so for an intermittent time. This then causes people to think twice before posting anything that may be remarked as suicidal on their part. Then they start beautifying their posts on account of embarrassment and discomfiture. This then appears to be the major damage that the virtual world through social networking could ever bring. That instead of bolstering an individual to be whoever he is and accept and be proud of what he has become, social media has given him a screen, a veil, a convincing mask to put on and hide behind to escape envisioned criticisms from his peers. The real person is buried and a phantom is created. But the sad fact is that this phantom is likely to haunt the real person from the moment it was created until the collapse of the seemingly perpetual virtual world. References “40 Most Popular Social Networking Sites of the World.” Social Media Today. 6 Oct. 2010. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Adams, Daniel. “The History of Social Media.” Instantshift. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Beckland, Jamie. “Why Mainstream Social Networks Complicate Our Identities [OPINION].” Mashable Business. Mashable OP-ED, 2 Sept. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. D'Monte, Leslie. “Also Known as the ‘SMS of the Internet,’ Twitter is a Free Social Networking and Micro-Blogging Service.” Business Standard. 29 Apr. 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Eldon, Eric. "2008 Growth Puts Facebook In Better Position to Make Money". VentureBeat. 19 Dec. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Gripaldo, Rolando. “The Person as Individual and Social Being.” CRVP.org. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Nath, Shivya. “Are We Losing Our Identity to Social Media.” The Shooting Star. 8 Jan. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. “No Man is an Island.” PoemHunter.com. John Donne (1572 – 1631), 3 Jan. 2003. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Posner, Roy. “The Four Stages of Society’s Evolution.” Growth Online. Gurusoftware. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Raspa, Anthony, ed. “Donne, John: Devotions Upon Emergent Occassions.” Literature Annotations. Literature, Arts and Medicine Database. 2 July 1997. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Steel, Emily. "Myspace Owners Timberlake, Specific Media Shrink Redesign Party. “ The Wall Street Journal – Digital Network. The Wall Street Journal. 19 Sept. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. Read More