Upon receiving Net IDs, every Cornell student is faced with a pressing decision: to make a facebook or not to make a facebook? In high school, it was typical for some people to have facebook accounts and for others to not; however, facebook quickly transformed into a social norm once Net IDs were distributed.
With this emerging norm, the SIDE theory came into play. Students were pressured to find their social identity. Since social identity theory states that people relate to others based on common or different group membership, choosing whether or not to join facebook puts you in a specific social category. The facebook community has a high degree of social influence because many people joined because their friends decided to join. Next came the deindividuation effects, which determine how visually anonymous you are in the online setting. Even though many people include a photograph, facebook still has some deindividuating effects. People write messages on walls that they wouldn’t dare say out loud. They conform to the “crowd behavior” because of the less immediate social cues.
The Leviathan on facebook has multiple levels. Once you agree to the contract to set up an account, you have to adhere to certain standards such as not posting nude pictures and allowing them to give out your e-mail address. People comply with these rules because of the power we have intrinsically assigned to facebook. We don’t want to risk termination of our accounts for fear of social alienation. Friends keep in touch over facebook, students set up meeting times for group projects over facebook, and sometimes dating even starts via facebook. Facebook is ingrained into college student culture, which consequently pressures people to conform and become dependent on this website. Wallace states that because we are eager to preserve a productive online environment, we willingly conform in spite of the freedoms we give up. Succumbing to the power of the Leviathan is often an effective way to preserve order, and in the case of facebook, to maintain efficient communication.
To supplement the contract rules, facebook empowers the participants as a second Leviathan-like force. The participants help ensure that everyone adheres to the terms of usage. Each member of the facebook community can delete posts that they find offensive or inappropriate. Censoring the content of facebook posts translates as a “raised eyebrow” in face to face interaction. Although this may infringe upon free speech, Wallace points out that people are willing to subscribe to a certain level of “netiquette” for their online environment to prosper. This sort of utilitarian attitude overrides individuality in many organized online spaces. People will conform because they understand that standards are meant to preserve a productive online setting for the greatest amount of people.
Although college conditions students strive to uphold values of individuality, students often conform on some level. The Leviathan enforces facebook standards first on an administrative level through the terms of usage that all participants agree to when creating their account. However, the more immediate Leviathan force is the intercommunity censorship. Despite the freedoms of speech that students give up, they follow social standards so that they are allowed to remain part of this vital social network. Violate the terms of usage, and your account will be quickly terminated, leaving you out of the loop of this popular interaction space.
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1 comment:
I always enjoy reading your posts. You are very concise and direct with your thoughts and do a great job connecting them with the relevant theories presented in class. Facebook is a great example of people conforming to social norms in order to fit into a group identity. Back home where I’m from facebook isn’t nearly as popular as it is here at Cornell. It just shows how different societies have different norms and standards that people follow in order to belong and be a part of a group. Being a facebook member, people do and say certain things that are deemed acceptable by others as they don’t want to be viewed as an outsider by not having certain applications and so on. The facebook team and facebook users themselves are the enforcers of the Leviathan. The facebook team sets the rules and guidelines and we the users are there to assist them in assuring compliance among other facebookers. And of course as you mentioned at the end of your post, if a person strays from the norm, consequences are likely to follow. Personally, when I’m on facebook, I never think about what I’m doing and that I’m following a set of norms but rather it just comes naturally as I’ve learned how to be a part of a group through experience. Again, great job!
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