Monday, December 1, 2008
Are you addicted the the US Weekly of your 'friends'?
I decided to google The Psychology of Facebook for my final blog. I’d first like to share that they are soon coming out with a book about this topic, though I am not sure when. However if this class is taught with this title in the future it may be a good book to consider. My original intent in googling this was to find an article to see how facebook was related to the major I am studying. Instead I first found this book and then I found this about the psychology of facebook. In this article they labeled you as one of 3 types of facebook users; the junkie, the daily fix, and the protester. The author then questions why facebook is so popular. The simple answer is that we are all interested in knowing what is going on in everyone’s lives, or voyeurism. Interestingly pointed out is that voyeurism is celebrated through the obsession with reality TV. So all we have done now is take what we were addicted to on the TV and turned it to our friends, acquaintances, teachers, class mates, ex lovers, ex friends, cousins, family and anyone else who can see our profile and whose those we can see. We are addicted to knowing what is going on in others lives, which was first brought to us through the TV but is now available with just a few clicks. The author concludes we are all creeps and compares facebook to be the US Weekly of our friends. I’d have to say this might be the best way to describe facebook, the US Weekly of our ‘friends’.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
That article was a cool read. It never occurred to me until now, but I can think of many friends that would distinctly fall into one of those three labels. I never would have considered the connections with television though, who knows what we'll try to draw upon next!
-Matthew Morgal
Daily Fix Facebook User
I do not think I could agree with this any more. I kind of feel like facebook just allows us to live vicariously through someone else, whether it be our friends, family, ex-lovers, etc. The psychology of facebook sounds like it could be an interesting read, especially because it appears as though it might be trying to tell us who we are.
I LOVE your comment and Facebook stalking reference to US Weekly. It’s totally true! Why is it that we’re so hooked on Facebook? I seriously think that they should start making therapy for people who are addicted to Facebook. Facebook has become almost as important as a cell phone!
This is so true...i would label myself a junkie probably i just get sucked into things. Have you ever seen gossip girl...that is like this point exaggerated times a MILLION. The entire show is some random girl reporting gossip about other people in the show...this is so true people do this all the time. Kelly-Lynne
Post a Comment