To be honest, I’m more than a bit worried when it comes to kids and their communication skills. I’ll take it multiple steps further and say I’m concerned about the current trends around how we all get and share information.
While Idiocracy was an absolutely terrible movie, it did paint what many fear may just be the future of mankind. For those who have avoided wasting 84 minutes of your life on the film, allow me to summarize the concept briefly. In the movie, survival of the fittest has been replaced by survival of the dumbest as laziness and an obsession with mindlessness has rotted our species’ brains over time. We in turn are left with societies that can’t think for themselves and spend days on end watching trash TV, contributing nothing and rapidly devolving.
Results from a recent survey by the Pew Research Center underscore what may be construed as a similar, though far less exaggerated decline. The study, which was released on Wednesday, indicates that the percentage of teens and young adults who actively blog has dropped off by about 50 percent when comparing 2009 with 2006. As was predicted, the other main trend of the study revolved around the meteoric rise in the popularity of social networks.
As long(er) form methods of communication drop off in favor of status updates and wall posts, where will the future content creators of tomorrow hone their writing skills? Will uploading mobile photos and clicking “like” displace thoughtful discourse and ultimately lead to a dumbed-down society? Before LiveJournal there were journals but what comes after them both?
Image credit: Marind
Ever since I joined Facebook in 2004 (and MySpace at some forgettable moment likely before then), I’ve been interested to see how social networking impacts an individual’s social structure. When one of my more outgoing friends reached the 1,000-friends mark during Facebook’s first year, my interest in that question intensified. Would this friend truly be able to maintain meaningful relationships with such a large group of people?
The short, predictable answer is no, and countless numbers of people have been interested in this very question, including, most famously, Robin Dunbar, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University. Though the results of his study will be published later this year, the Times Online has the early scoop on Dunbar’s latest findings. Some key excerpts below.
Dunbar is now studying social networking websites to see if the “Facebook effect” has stretched the size of social groupings. Preliminary results suggest it has not.
“The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” said Dunbar.
“People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s.”
Having some scientific proof of this constraint, how will this affect how companies attempt to become a part of their customers’ online life?
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Michele Nachum, Account Director, WE Studio D
We all know that social networking is a global phenomenon, but delving into the specifics of why people in different regions use social media is always interesting. Recently I traveled to Israel to visit with family. I spoke to my teenage stepkids, Adiel and Sharon, ages 16 and 14 (who live there with their mom) and my 17-year old niece, Bat Sheva, about their social networking habits. I was curious whether their social media habits were different from what people are doing in the U.S. and what their motivations were for using the tools.
All three live in Jerusalem. Growing up there is exciting with its ancient ruins, fascinating museums and cool tree-lined streets with quaint outdoor cafes. Like many of the big cities in Israel, Jerusalem is growing in leaps and bounds, but it’s a city that spiritually and politically speaking is very intense – and for its residents it also can be like a small town. While the city is fairly large and sprawling, it is made up of smaller neighborhoods where everyone knows each other. In these small enclaves, people have very strong beliefs about what to wear (in the orthodox sections that means girls in long skirts and guys in suits), how to pray, what to eat, etc.
So for Sharon, Adiel and Bat Sheva, social networking is an outlet, a place where they can be themselves without fear of censorship, where they can vent and feel safe.
Sharon and Bat Sheva are avid Facebook users who between them have nearly 1,000 friends from school, camp and scouts. Sharon also uses Connections, a regional site, as well as MySpace. She tells me that Facebook is her favorite of the social networking sites and spends a good portion of her day posting her thoughts, photos and shopping trips to her hundreds of friends. A self-professed drama queen, her posts are chock-full of hearts, exclamation points and happy faces. Here is a sample: היום יום הולדת יום יום הולדת היום יום הולדת לשרון ורותם!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ (translation: It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday!)
Funny enough, she “friended” my husband and me on Facebook. I asked her why; after all most teens don’t want their parents peeking into their online lives. She said, “I don’t care … what do I have to hide?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What DO you have to hide?”
“Nothing I would put on Facebook.”
Bat Sheva is very artistic and fiercely independent. She colors her hair a different shade every few days, and has little desire to blend in with the neighbors. She also has a deep love of poetry and photography. Weekly, her unusual photos and poems are posted on Facebook in both English and Hebrew for her 575 friends.
Social networking is not really Adiel’s thing. He’s not one to “express” himself with continual posts the way his sister and cousin do. Instead, he prefers to communicate with his friends until four in the morning (instead of studying, mind you) on ICQ, the instant messenger service that began in Israel and is now owned by AOL. Thanks to his frequent IMs, Adiel has been in trouble with several members of the female population for talking to many of his girlfriends at the same time.
Overall, the social networking habits of Israeli teens are not that different from the U.S. However, Israel is a different type of place to grow up. Even in peaceful times, danger lurks in the minds of all its residents – and vigilance is a way of life. If you ask Sharon, Adiel or Bat Sheva about it, they will shrug it off like it’s no big deal. But they understand the reality of their lives and deal with it the best they know how.