I’ve often wondered what kind of long term effects social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook and the hundreds (if not thousands) of knockoffs will have on my generation in the future. When I was in high school, these sites were just beginning and almost no one I knew had an account or had even heard of these sites. By the time I reached college, however, practically everyone I knew had an account on one, if not both. In fact, quite a few people I knew even had such a reliance on these websites that they used them as a primary source of communication between each other. To enforce this reliance, there are even newly created English verbs associated with both of the sites. Grammatically speaking, the infinitives would be “to myspace” and “to facebook”. It is not an unusual thing to hear one student say to another, “Facebook me” or “Myspace me” or even “I’ll facebook you”, etc.
Admittedly, I have accounts on both MySpace and Facebook and even on a site called studiVZ (basically a German equivalent of Facebook). I don’t think I would have survived socially in the world of a university student without them. I think if everyone one had access to them from anywhere (like they do a cell phone), they would quickly become the only real source of communication; even topping text messaging, which, I would have to say, is at number one right now.
Another thing I have noticed is that it widens the gap between my generation and my parents’ generation. There is a whole layer of communication that goes on between people my generation that my parents’ generation (and older) can’t seem to grasp. They’ve ceased to be quite so surprised by it, but for a while, I would tell my parents that I was going over to such-and-such’s house because he had invited me over and they would comment that we hadn’t gotten a phone call for hours. I would have to explain to them that I hadn’t been invited by phone, but rather by a message on MySpace or Facebook.
I’m not sure what exactly prompted me to write about this, but it was a thought I had, so I decided to share it. I can’t honestly say I have any idea what the long term effects will be, but I’m fairly sure we’ll see some sort of reaction to it; whether it be just another method of communication or it affect the way people learn to communicate and socialize with others overall.
What do you think will happen?
