Facebook has created entire new field in technology and business called Social Networks. It has allowed millions of people to connect with people they hadn’t seen or heard from in years or new people they had never met. People can know see what their friends are doing or how they are feeling even if they are on different continents. People share photos, chat online, and wish each other happy birthday. Technology has made it easier than it has ever been before to stay in touch with friends. People spend hours each day looking at pictures of their friends, updating their status and talking to their friend through Facebook chat. The reason Facebook has been so successful because it has attempted to solve one of the deepest problems humans struggle with. Facebook attempted to give people a venue to solve the issue of feeling lonely and unwanted. Acclaimed author Donald Miller who wrote Blue like Jazz called it the lifeboat complex. Meaning that humans feel as though we are all on a life boat and there isn’t enough food for everyone. The most unpopular and least useful will be thrown overboard, left alone to die. Humans because of this, feel the constant need define their self-worth by other people’s opinions. Facebook created a venue for people to attempt to solve this dilemma. People can proudly display the number of friends they have and post pictures of fun and exciting things happening in their lives. It as if humans are saying, “Hey can you see how cool I am. Please throw the other guy off the boat.”
The problem is that I believe that Facebook only distracts people or attempts to hide the problem. This is a very similar to what happen with television. TV creates the illusion of have having fun and laughing, but it can’t change the fact that you are all by yourself. It only distracts you. T.S. Eliot said about TV “The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.” Social Networks like facebook do not solve the problem they actually make it worst. Facebook only allows you to have shallow relationships with people. It doesn’t help to fill the void that each human has. Facebook actually causes people to neglect real friendships because of these virtual friendships. The more technology our society begins to use the more people continue to forget what a real friend is. Someone who would die for you, someone who would tell you what you are doing is wrong, who cares more for you then himself and would sacrifice the relationship if it would help you. With texting, email, facebook, and other technologies people are losing their ability to talk and really listen to what is going on in another person’s life. It leaves people discontent with their friendships. Talking to people all day, but still lonely. A Person can spend hours and hours on facebook attempting to get their fix of human interaction, but it is only distracts and wastes time that could be used to actually solve the problem. Facebook is a place where a person can have 934 friends and on their birthday 246 people wish them happy birthday, and that same person could not have a single friend who knows or cares for them, and they cry themselves to sleep at night.
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For more blogs written by Ford Jordan visit www.fordjordan.com.
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