Facebook as a New Media Home and Distance - Assignment Example

The paper posits that in the virtual space, Facebook has overcome the friction of distance. In reality, however, the medium has increased the social distance between its users.My Facebook community is significant. First, there are members of family and relatives. While a significant number of them are present on Facebook, I still prefer to communicate with them through more formal channels such as phone and email. For this category of participants, the virtual distance remains large, although socially we are close.

Then there is an entire array of “friends” from elementary and high schools, classmates in college, and friends and acquaintances from church. Then, of course, there are “friends” of these “friends”. I communicate with this category of “friends” a lot via Facebook. Thus, the virtual distance between us is very short(Chen 1212). However, for close friends with whom I have had a long history, I preserve more serious talk on the phone and face-to-face conversations.

For a physical house, the boundaries are quite clear. In most cases, there is a fence that demarcates the boundaries of the house. Usually, a person will not walk into the house unless they are a member or have been invited. This order ensures privacy for the inhabitants of the house. For the media house that is Facebook, the boundaries of friendships are quite blurred (Chen 1214). In fact, it appears that there is no limit to the chain of friends one can “invite” or receive invitations from.

This scenario virtually erodes privacy on Facebook. Often, I receive "friend requests" from total strangers. In all cases, my reaction is to turn them down. On my part, I only “invite” people I know personally and whom I believe would be pleased to receive the invitation.There is a hierarchy of my Facebook “friends”(Chen 1213). At the top of the pyramid are family and friends. So serious am I about this category of friends that I limit my Facebook communications to greetings.