Friends & Social Media Summary

 Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out 

By: Don Grady

Developing & Maintaining Friendships•Social media helps:

>make friends >perform friendships >socialize w/ friends >negotiate peer groups >flirt >share stories >author public identities >public connectedness >access info. on others >articulating meanings >building friendships >strengthen friendships

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Developing & Maintaining Friendships•Social Media allows:

>reinforcing of relationships >constituting new social arrangements >“hanging out” >expanded connections with: school, worship centers, summer camps, work, etc. >public display of connections

Developing & Maintaining Friendships• Social Media Issues:

>friendship hierarchies (top 8) >creates attention needs >drama >status representations (ex. lots of friends, comments, likes, etc.) >stranger danger >influences teens and others >seeking attention >presentation of self >gossip >bullying >addiction >stalking

Discussion Developing & Maintaining Friendships

• Social networking helps us to maintain and improve

relationships. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other social media can provide an additional

way can of communicating outside the regular limitations of work, school, and other activities. While social networks can help

to maintain and strengthen friendships they also open the

door for false representations of ones self and can help convey and spread drama and rumors.

• Q: Do you think social networking sites create a false sense of who and what friends

are and do?

Internet & Social Media Addiction•Signs of Addiction:

>judge social network as popularity contest >maintaining multiple social networks >discuss intimate matters w/out fear of damaging face or damaging local reputation >urge driven

Social Media Addiction Quotes

• “engrossed in searches” p.11

• “Facebook is better than real life” p. 28

• “adding anyone they know” p. 23

• “showing off her Photobucket account, Stephanie proudly proclaimed that she had more than 400 images in her album” p. 10

• “Youth today are ... borrowing from the photo albums of people they’ve never met” p. 13

• “accepts all Haitian friend requests” p. 24

Discussion Internet & Social Media Addiction

• Users on social networks who have urges to check or update

their page while searching through several other

acquaintances profiles and commenting where they

desire often feel that friendships are being made or

improved. This can be problematic and may also result in less exercise and experiences outside of the

computer world.

• Q: How much time on social networks do you think is

healthy?

Making Friends Using Social Media

• friendships tend to have less homogenous connections when developed online

• learn more about acquaintances and their backgrounds

• public display of established connections

• teens use friends to enact their identity

• develop set of shared social practices for friending

Making Friends Using Social Media

• Friending: >“I’d feel mean if I didn’t accept” p. 25 >sign of niceness >opening for potential friendships >deleting “friends” is socially inappropriate and can be problematic >top 8’s/friends -coveted #1 spot; reserved for best-friend, significant other, or close family member -explicit ranking -creates hierarchies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUGmcb3mhLM

Example of Friends & Social Media

(follow link)

Discussion Making Friends Using Social Media

• Social media adjusts, and sometimes creates, the way we see and perceive others. The same can be said about our

own identities as our information is being shared.

Problems and drama can occur with the assistance of social

networking sites through these virtual unseen interactions where users search through

others background information and history.

• Q: Do you think it’s wise to share your personal information

on a public social-networking site? Why or why not?

• Q: What’s your feelings on accepting friend requests from

users you hardly know?