Online communities almost market themselves on the idea of “connecting” with people. Facebook, now the cliché example, is a good example of how individuals interact with other individuals online. Technically, anybody can be anybody elses friend with the accepting persons approval. Another benefit of websites like Facebook and Myspace (Facebook to a larger degree) is that you can find old friends/contacts, and ultimately add them to your friends list. This scenario can cause problems on a larger scale.
Even though one can accept/deny requests as one of Facebook’s privacy options, more complicated factors may come into play. For example, if someone might happen to know the requester in an “offline” relationship of some kind, a refusal to accept the friendship request could cause real life awkward and social tensions. Surely that person would want to know why the person they requested to be Facebook friends with had turned them down. This could bring up unwarranted animosity between people by bringing together peoples work/school and private lives.
Social networking sites, especially Facebook and Myspace where the “friending” aspect is most used, are being used as “relationship monitors” for many. Numerous examples can be given about middle and high school kids starting real physical confrontations about either rumors or personal materials on these sites. The article below from November 18, 2008, goes into more detail about how real social anxieties can be brought out through the online world.
The internet has made an enormous headway in turning itself into a modern, technological marketplace. In this case, social capital being the main product for the consumer to take in. If social capital is a concept of not just how many contacts or “friends” someone has, but rather what one can make out of those ties, then can we use these online public spheres into something useful for our forward social mobilization? It may depend on how well we can market ourselves, and time will tell.
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