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Editorial: Let's be Facebook friends!
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
This past month, there has been an impressive amount of news stories reflecting our selfish and ridiculous nature.
BlackBerry has some technology transfer issues and humans everywhere fear mass communication failures.
Friday, October 21st is the second predicted apocalypse this year, courtesy of Mr. Harold Camping.
Steve Jobs dies and suddenly the mock-turtleneck becomes hot fashion.
Amazon.com (you know, that wonderful site students use to bypass bookstore prices), is being sued for revealing an actress’s age.
My absolute favourite?
49% Turnout for Provincial election polls, an all-time low, because everyone seems to have a bad case of voter burnout.
Interestingly enough, not one of these news stories were revealed to me as a result of CBC news, The Hamilton Spectator, The Globe and Mail, or any other legitimized and trusted news source.
No, each of these were courtesy of a little social networking system we all use: Facebook.
Facebook is not even a decade old, but it has it’s own movie, a $4.27 billion revenue, and over 800 million active users. If I need to know what is going on in the world, I don’t go to the newspapers, I go to Facebook.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I learned about Bin Laden’s death (maybe 10 minutes after it happened) over Facebook. I’m equally embarrassed to admit that I participated in the Steve Jobs eulogistic status update fest (because I have a MacBook named Lucy that was in a mood the day of his passing). My opinions regarding the Wall Street strike have probably been influenced more by social networking than actual news.
And we can’t forget that Facebook recently changed its appearance (again), causing a wave of unimpressed status updates and threatened boycotts.
It’s just too bad that there aren’t bigger fish for us North Americans to fry.
I hope many of you have seen the recent critiques of Jobs circulating through the Facebook world. One of the most poignant images - and the one that prompted this editorial - was a split screen picture with a photograph of Steve Jobs on one side and a group of starving African children on the other. The caption reads, “One dies and millions cry. Millions die and no one cries.”
This powerful image caused me to do a reality check. Judging by the fifteen-minutes of fame headlines I pulled from this month, I can see where my social allegiances fall. When organizations such as Invisible Children, the International Justice Mission, or Be the Voice, raise their humanitarian flag, I cannot help but be ashamed of the fact that, as a Christian, I don’t always stand under them.
Social networking has become ubiquitous, divulging more opinions of more people on more hot topics than news broadcasters bear to keep up with. In a world where anything can be said, ‘Freedom of Speech’ is undermined by the politically correct. Twitter is a perfect example.
But here it is: we need to remember that not every opinion presented on a social network site is valuable. In fact, not every status update, blog entry, or tweet is conducive to brilliance. Most of what we throw flippantly up in cyberspace is our own version of fifteen-minute fame. We are excited when people follow us on Twitter or befriend us on Facebook. Why? Because it means someone actually cares about our opinion.
It’s important to take opinion for what it is: opinion. And opinion can be dangerous. Recently, an article was released through the Canadian University Press discussing court cases and Facebook hate crime. Charges were laid on a student who added a slanderous comment regarding a professor to a ‘public’ group on the website.
Interestingly, many younger voters accredit their burnout to ongoing politically oriented social networking conversations. When BlackBerry’s technical problems arose, users Tweeted or updated their Facebook status to make the world aware of their sudden technological impoverishment. We join Facebook causes to prove we care. We blog to be philosophers. We Tweet so that everyone else in the world knows we know that they know we know.
And honestly, I’m as guilty of it as the next person. I’ve bought into the entirely false mentality that my opinion matters. The world cares what I do. Humility... What’s that? Go ahead and laugh, but you are still reading this editorial.
So what if my dad is going to get a few nice mock-turtlenecks for Christmas this year. He wore them long before Jobs made them popular. And that actress should be more worried about the millions dying that no one cries about. For the record, I should too.
And one final note: if you’re reading this, Harold Camping was wrong and the world didn’t end like he advertised. I guess we’re just going to have to stay tuned until 2012, fix our opinion-entitlement culture, and start caring.
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