Social Capital...Facebook.

THANK GOD FOR FACEBOOK! If it weren't for this site I would have never been able to keep in contact with everyone from home whilst being at uni. This is apparently called "friendsickness" (Paul & Brier, 2001) where a connection with a friend is lost or strained because of one or both of them moving away for college. I can honestly say that if I didn't have the option of social networking sites I wouldn't have kept more than two friendships going for more than a few weeks. Instant messaging helped as well but in the age of Facebook I’ve used it less and less over the passed couple of years of having Facebook.

A line of Facebook intensity caught my attention, “I feel out of touch when I haven't logged onto Facebook for a while” and my first thought was “Yep, that’s me all over” even when I’m not in the room I still leave Facebook on, I’m not sure whether it’s because I want people to be able to reach me at all times, I can check up on what other people are doing with their day when I return or I, simply, have a poor social life. But even when running a full screen program I am logged into Facebook and MSN (on some occasions I’m Twitter as well). I often refresh the page to see if any new updates have appeared on the homepage too. I’m beginning to wonder whether my face-to-face interaction is actually hindered by online social networking. I feel I’m freer to express opinions over Facebook and other social networking sites but in person I have noticed I’m more restricted in what I say. I guess being in front of a computer screen gives you some sort of feeling of anonymous power to say whatever you feel like and not get the full consequences of it. Like the hate comments on Youtube, because you can’t see the person commenting it is easy to say anything to them and not have to deal with the social awkwardness.

After reading "The benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital and college students' use of social network sites" it's actually weird how much of an effect social capital has on society. Can sitting in front of Facebook and MySpace really better public health, lower crime rates, and benefit financial markets (Adler & Kwon, 2002)? The point made about new forms of social capital and relationship building occurring in online social network sites. I defiantly agree with this point. People that i have met a few times face-to-face but not enough to develop a proper relationship with have developed over Facebook simply by writing on each other's walls and sharing links of similar interests which can be seen on the profile. Facebook it a way acts as a helper in friendship/relationship building, friends in common can be viewed on the profile, groups and fan pages also appear on the profile and the ability to comment upon each other's activity. Facebook assists the user in conversation topics to uphold a relationship. But then again, some people on Facebook i hardly ever speak to online are my closest friends offline and the people i talk more to online are people i don't usually see let alone converse with offline. Like Boyd and Hogan point out in their archive,
"All too frequently, someone makes a comment about how a large number of Facebook Friends must mean a high degree of social capital. Or how we can determine who is closest to who by measuring their email messages. Or that the Dunbar number can explain the average number of Facebook friends."
To me they're quite rightly pointing out how Facebook is not the same the same as "real life" as apposed to virtual life.
I have also noticed that people that I don't associate or even get on with are added to my Facebook account. Why does social networking not apply to the same rules in real life? Can people be friends on Facebook but not offline? Either way Facebook friends doesn’t actually mean that the users are friends. Just “virtual friends”.