在线社交网络正在改变人们相互联系的方式吗?
Guest Contributor

08 July 2009

Greetings. My name isMalcolm Parksand I'll be joining John and Ken to discuss this topic at an event at Pacific University on April 17th. I'm a communication researcher at the University of Washington, where I've been looking into online and offline social networks and relationships for some time.

Facebook现在是世界上最大的在线社交网站，本月早些时候注册了它的第2亿名会员。像Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Orkut, Twitter等网站已经变得如此成功，以至于我们忘记了它们都还不到5-6年的历史。现在给出明确的答案还为时过早，但我们知道社交网站(SNS)提出了一些有趣的问题，关于社交关系的本质以及它可能如何变化。这里有一些让我们思考的想法……

Does Facebook Change the Way People Relate to Each Other? When researchers like me think about the social impact of communication technologies like Facebook, we try to look beyond simple things like saving time or money. Instead we ask four questions about SNS like Facebook and MySpace:

Too soon to know for sure, but here are some of the things we might consider. Right off the top, let's ask what it means to be a "friend" in an online setting like Facebook. Research shows that most people list 2-20 friends in offline settings. But the average number of "Facebook friends" is typically 300-500. So who are all these people? Acquaintances? Friends of friends? Lapsed friends?

Thanks to everything from personal profiles to google searches, it is possible to learn more about people before first meeting them. Some have suggested that this might make us more critical-- more quickly sorting down to those few people who match some preset criterion. Perhaps we harshly winnow out people who might be turn out to be more interesting if they had more of a chance. Also, SNS make others' social connections more clearly visible to us than ever before. What is the impact of that? Does the old adage about judging people by the company they keep take on extra weight? We think it might. We also think that discovering that your friends have friends who belong to groups you don't like might have an impact on how prejudiced your are. If nothing else, SNS and the internet generally have greatly increased contact among members of extended families (yes, that's right-- the net is pro-family!). It also greatly increases access to social support for people dealing with diseases or difficult life changes.

Does Facebook Change What it Means to "Know" Someone?对我来说，这是一个更吸引人的问题——一个让我们面对基本哲学问题的问题:当我们说我们认识另一个人时，我们的意思是什么?“知道”仅仅是掌握别人的信息吗?如果是这样，那么什么样的信息具有最大的知识价值?或者，真正的“知道”是在相互揭示的过程中展开的吗?如果是这样的话，从某人的Facebook个人资料中获得所有额外的信息是否会打乱这个过程，还是仅仅意味着我们开始了更深入的研究?那么信息本身呢?欺骗是一种普遍的人类行为，但互联网使人们比以往任何时候都更容易塑造自己希望他人拥有的形象。那么，我们是否拥有更多的“信息”，却对他人缺乏真正的了解?我们是否开始认为所有的在线演讲都有几分欺骗性，或者不那么武断地说，是好玩的还是讽刺的?这些都是重要的问题，但还有两个更微妙的问题也让我感兴趣。 When so much information about us is public, what remains of the private or personal? I'm always surprised that people don't worry more about all the personal information they put up online. Finally, shouldn't we be worrying at least a little about the fact that Facebook and MySpace and many other SNS encourage us to describe ourselves in terms of standardized categories? Are we commodifying ourselves? Maybe we always have, but I'm particularly concerned when I see MySpace users present themselves in terms of product logos and symbols. Do I really "know" you if I know what products and services you consume? If so, what does that say about the nature of what we have become?

这是值得考虑的事情。我期待听到其他人对这些问题的看法。

Comments(13)

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Guest

Thursday, July 9, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

嗯，你是说4月17日吗?That's quite a bit down

嗯，你是说4月17日吗?这是相当长的一段路。无论如何，我刚刚在FB上发表了这篇专栏文章，想知道我的“朋友”会怎么想(我有921个朋友……)。
One question: why is it that finding out through a SNS who your friends associate with increases your prejudice? Could that information not actually be an important reflection of a person's traits that I may have missed otherwise, and which may lower the esteem I have for that person? Just some food for further thought.

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

While i was reading down the post and I was hoping

While i was reading down the post and I was hoping some sort of answer :D Anyway the questions are what impulse us.
By the way this is the first time I stumpple this blog and at a glance I see you can really improve the comments form, mainly by allowing to post whithout living the pòst.
Cheers

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, July 25, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

Hi! I find this subject really pertinent to my li

Hi!
I find this subject really pertinent to my life. In 1997 I created my first "personal website" (some kind of ancestor to Facebook) at the age of 11. Ever since then I've been involved in socializing electronically. I had friends both online and off (not necessarily the same folks) until I fell into a social scene of people more similar to myself who did spend time with each other away from computers, but also did a lot of back-and-forth on online forums and blogs. These are people who are very much still in my life now almost 10 years later, and we all continue to write online and socialize out in the "real world".
Isn't it tricky to philosophize about something while being in the midst of it? I'm glad other people out there are having discussions, because it's such a personal thing to me at this moment that I don't know how to objectively talk about it!
但我确实认为，通过在线角色进行互动确实包含了一些魔幻体验——填补了人们个性中的空白，而这些空白并不一定是通过日常互动来填补的。而且，人们不需要使用互联网或社交网络工具也能很好地做到这一点。Hmm
Thanks for the Wicked Radio Shows!
-Silvi

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Guest

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

I think that social networking has managed to chan

I think that social networking has managed to change the way interact and relate with one another. It has become a medium of communication that has unprecedented potential, both positively and negatively. What I'm wondering about is if this is merely a new medium for interpersonal relations, or if this is a new form of it entirely.

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, August 2, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

It is definitely a change for one another to know

在第一次见面之前就了解对方，这绝对是一种改变。
Additionally, it is also a change that one can so easily represent themselves via textual descriptions however they want to. This also opens the door for possible deception.
Finally the point about putting so much information in a public forum where it can easily be saved in some server farm or on someone's hard disk is a bit unnerving for people who care at all about privacy.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, August 20, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

Friends Complete Series 1-10 Collection DVD Box Se

Friends Complete Series 1-10 Collection DVD Box Set (40 dvds),a sitcom behemoth of the last 10 years, Friends shot out of the gate in 1994 with snappy writing and an attractive cast.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, August 22, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

Some interesting points here, but i feel the main

Some interesting points here, but i feel the main issues regarding this topic are the issues of identity, perception and community, none of which were really discussed in full here.
We all know that the info about ourselves will be used as useful marketing research for companies looking to market products etc...and whether this is a bad thing or not is kind of secondary, as far as i'm concerned, in regards to the important aspects of understanding why SN has become such a prominent aspect of our culture (and i say culture in the broadest sense as this is now a global issue).
Questions i am interested in with relation to this subject are:
1: How much of our true identities go into the construction of our SN (online/web) identities and to what extent are these identities a manipulation of perception in order to create a desired perception by others.
2: What are the true perceived reactions by others to these identities and how far are they removed from the original desire of the person?
4: (possibly the most metaphysical) Are SN identities an attempt to exist outside of the realms of 'real life' human mortality in an attempt to create an immortal self.
3: SN的流行是对现实生活社区崩溃的直接反应吗?如果是这样，这对未来人与人之间的关系和交流意味着什么?
Although i have opinions on these questions (and these are but a few of the questions i find interesting with regards to this subject) i would like to start a discussion based on these questions if anyone is interested???
Thanks
Simon.

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Guest

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 -- 5:00 PM

I actually just finished a project, producing a ph

I actually just finished a project, producing a philosophy based social network, where people can ask questions in exchange for philosophical answers for members. If anybody is interested it's called qphia - the quest for philosophical answers, and can be found athttp://qphia.com

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Guest

Thursday, February 11, 2010 -- 4:00 PM

Once again you fall fawnfully under the spell of t

你又一次被AI的魅力所迷惑。注意mysterians !读罗杰·彭罗斯!进入中文房间!雷·库兹韦尔是个骗子。体验伟大的艺术，驳斥唯我论。

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Guest

Saturday, February 13, 2010 -- 4:00 PM

There were some good questions you have put up, so

There were some good questions you have put up, some thing to think over. Are we commodifying ourselves? thats a brilliant question.

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Guest

Friday, April 27, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Though a funny stuff but it

虽然是一个有趣的东西，但它需要几轮思考。将自己与某些产品或商标联系起来，可以很大程度上反映一个人的精神状态，但这并不能表征一个人的个性。毫无疑问，这表明我们对自世界杯赛程2022赛程表欧洲区己和我们作为人类的真正潜力知之甚少。仅仅通过一些信息来了解某人并不是一个好主意，尽管这实际上正在社交媒体上发生。它只表明我们希望别人了解我们，而不是真实的自己。

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Guest

Friday, May 4, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Actually the intricacies of

其实，错综复杂的关系是常人无法理解的。人们通常无法感受到他们渴望与他人建立联系背后的原因。有这么多的标准和驱动力，但它们只是本能地行动。是的，社交网站改变了人际关系的方程式，或者说我们如何与他人相处。但这就像探索人类理解关系的新可能性或新视野。社交媒体提供了进行关系实验的平台，明天我们将处于一个更好的位置来定义社会的基本问题，那就是关系。