Despite all the fancy numbers and charts, standing from a user’s point of view, the rapid expansion of social network could also have some drawbacks to users’ daily lives.
1. Unnecessary yet OBSESSIVE compulsory
As a victim of social websites, I’ve read tons of reports judging how social media jeopardize peoples’ patience, chop intact timeslots into pieces and suck them all up. Users’ obsessive compulsory to check new updates has made its way with the aid of ubiquitous wireless network and the popularity of 3G cellphone. These totally unnecessary behaviors effectively reduce the efficiency of peoples’ work and study, while people are too addicted to get over them.
2. Dilemma of choice
Here’s a comic from www.joyoftech.com, describing a choice dilemma, sometimes referred to as Choice Phobia Disorder. The competitive market of social websites creates a fair chance for every developer with minimum setup to join, in which way numerous websites surge to fight for users’ attention, for example, just to name a few, FB, twitter, imdb, instagram (overseas); renren, weibo, douban (PRC). Each time a user needs to update a status, he or she has to choose among them all. Different social groups with various verified “friends” do differentiate some of them from the others, but the overall overwhelming existence is still too much to handle.
3. Farther distance from the society
With social media, people communicate through characters and easily get content by browsing picture profiles instead of seeing the person himself/herself. Indifferent comments, digitized pictures, symbolized preferences and some wrong interpretation of traditional words such as “like” and “friend”, these contorted factors are all driving people away from the simplest way of making friends, e.g. the concept of “friend” on facebook is somehow drifted away from its original meaning already.
According to Robin Dunbar (Oxford University's professor of evolutionary anthropology), after you have amassed 150 friends on Facebook, any more are meaningless because the human brain can only remember 150 meaningful relationships anyway[1].
On the other hand, people are not willing to reveal very personal details to the public, so the idea of absolutely closing the gap between people is yet more like a fantasy, which no one knows exactly when it’s ever gonna be achieved after all.
However, this blog doesn’t serve to deny the whole existence of social media, since they are still doing tremendous help to the society. On the other hand, there can be many more aspects on the drawback of social media. So welcome to leave a comment of how you think of the current trend, and maybe even pinpoint some possible solutions?
References:
[1] Robin Dunbar, http://phys.org/news183791343.html
for point one in this blog, i agree that i tend to check my renren more frequently than other webs since its updates could occur at any time and all come from someone i'm cared with, although i know i won't miss too much things if i checked it later and most of time i found nothing interesting. i think it's a way that social network changed my life brought many troubles. since most of my "friends" on social network are only the ones i know, not the ones i'm familiar with, point two in this blog hasn't troubled me much~ and for point three in this blog, i must say social network gives me a good start of knowing someone. i mean that unless on social network, maybe i won't have the courage to make a first talk to someone new for me. but social network makes me seem to be familiar with my classmates before we have the chance to meet each other. for this point, i think social network help me a lot. however, if i'm more willing to talk with those who are completely out of my life, like someone faraway and we have nothing mixed in real life, i think you are right.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you on the point that Unnecessary yet OBSESSIVE compulsory.Since now many internet account can Bind your social network ID.The main function of a Data Binding class is to bridge data formats that correspond in some way to the schema of an input or output message.With no doubt,it is more convinient for people to share their updated information or status, but actually it is more like a advertisement to promote the new function for the network operators .So it is annoying enough.
ReplyDeleteExactly! How annoying it is to see an auto-generated status like "I just joined ABC website, come and check!" That's why I always created new accounts instead of binding my social network accounts like qq/weibo/renren. Sooooooooo STUPID.....! YUCK =^=
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