Facebook Groups

Facebook groups have a powerful way of uniting people or separating people based on certain interests. When I first joined Facebook, I remember of the first groups I was invited to was Facebook is better than Myspace. Many Facebook groups are based on this competitive nature. There are groups for various professional sports teams to prove which teams have the most fan support. In addition, there are certain groups that compete in a race to get to 1,000,000 members before some other group. In this way, certain groups separate people based on their allegiance to a professional team.

Although many Facebook groups are simply joined for pleasure, other groups can be very beneficial. If a group project is assigned at school or work, Facebook becomes an easy way to communicate with certain colleagues or students whom we may not know very well. The group application on Facebook is extremely valuable for any kind of group project. One of the most common types of groups that undoubtedly we have all come across is the "I need phone numbers group." Instead of having to run into all your friends just to get their phone numbers, you can create a group and it provides an easy forum to get everyone's phone number back. However, with so many of these groups, people become annoyed with how many different groups they have to post their phone number. It appears that many people have become embarrassed to even start a similar group for fear of annoying people.

One of my friends got a little too creative with his title in which it appeared that he died. He was just looking for everyone's phone number, but certain people became confused thinking he had actually died. I guess the lesson is we should always read the group information before we jump to any conclusions.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Chapter 6 of Paul Levinson's book, New New Media, tackles the social "behemoth" of Myspace. When discussing such a social medium, the idea of friends comes up. In the chapter, Levinson appropriately raises the question of what is a Myspace friend? Is it a misuse of the word?

My interpretation of "friends" online is that when discussing social media like Myspace and Facebook, we all must redefine the word first. A friend in social media isn't necessarily someone that you see often, call, spend time with, or even have your trust. Instead, an friend in this realm is someone that shares common interests, share common friends which are online or in person, can be people you went to high school with, or just met. Therefore, the use of the term "friend" begins to have a new scope and meaning when we are using it with regards to those in our social media community.