Once upon a time, people wrote letters to stay in contact with distant friends or loved ones. When the telephone was invented and regularly used, people converted to calling one another to stay in touch. Meanwhile, the internet was born, and users would email other users to converse; nowadays, “Friending” someone on Facebook is a new way to connect.
Whether using it to stay in touch, meet new people or as a hobby, social networking sites such as Facebook offers a new realm of opportunities while also presenting many dangers to individual user’s lives.
Social networking not only affects an individual’s daily routine, but also one’s relationships, way of planning or seeking events, and even hobbies. Fourteen percent of social networkers are said to unite through a hobby, such as role playing.
“Role playing means inhabiting skin as another person; same as writing a novel about another person, as well as being an actor. You create this life for a character and you live it out as you dictate their personality to imaginary circumstances,” said Audrey Spears, 19.
When a person uses Facebook to role play, the user will create an account under a different name than their own, create a character, and send messages back and forth to other characters, creating different scenes that the role players will type out and create between the different characters. Throughout the process of role-playing, the users may become very empathetic toward their character.
“It’s very stress relieving,” said Carolyn Palmer, 18. “If I’m in a bad mood, I’ll have my character be in a bad mood. Your character will sometimes reflect your thoughts and emotions.”
Palmer has been role playing for six years now, and has 11 different role playing accounts.
“I love role playing, and I hate when people say it’s a waste of time,” said Palmer.
Samuel Brown, 20, once used Facebook to plan and arrange a snowboarding trip. He explains that he didn’t have everyone’s number, so it was easier to plan through Facebook. Brown also adds that he feels that Facebook is a good idea, but doesn’t want to spend too much time on it.
“If you spend too much time on Facebook managing your friends, you’re not out meeting new people,” said Brown.
61 percent of users feel closer to another person due to social networking. This is especially true for Nate Mahaffy, 19, whose girlfriend lives an hour and a half away. Mahaffy feels that Facebook is positive for relationships. He said that texting and face-to-face communication feels more literal, while Facebook allows more flirting.
Kaitlyn Macpherson, 19, whose boyfriend lives in a different state, feels the same way; although adding that Facebook once caused fights between her and her beau.
Macpherson has also experienced social networking problems of her own.
Macpherson once gained more than 20,000 Myspace friends. Her pictures were being exposed to various websites all around the Internet. She explains that multiple times, different users stole her pictures, her account was “faked” and another user pretended to be her. Macpherson says that her Myspace account was hacked at least four times. Eventually, she gave up on Myspace, and created a Facebook account, where she experienced the same disturbances. She said that her account was hacked again, multiple times. At that point, Macpherson gave up social networking altogether for six months. Now that she’s back online, she points out that she uses Facebook to display her photography pictures and that was her goal all along. Macpherson said that now she watches herself more, has a trickier password and doesn’t “friend” just anybody. With 800 friend requests waiting for her, she no longer bothers to accept the request. “Do what you want to do, but there’s always going to be consequences no matter what. It can happen to anyone,” said Macpherson.
- Sat. Jul 20th, 2024