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Question of the day: What did you have for breakfast this morning? Or, better yet, what did your 10 best friends have for breakfast this morning?

Chances are, if you (and your friends) are among the estimated 250 million plus users of Facebook, you can simply log on and find out. You can also accept an invitation to a birthday party this Saturday night, join a support group for “Big Brother” addicts or see the “Top 5 Superpowers” that your cousin’s neighbor “Ned” wishes he had. Oh, and while you’re there, you can update your status so that everyone on your ‘friends list’ knows exactly how many times you’ve scratched your ear in the last hour.

Yes, the age of social networking and cyber communication is upon us, and has been for some time. Of particular popularity is the world’s No. 1 social interaction Web site, Facebook. Launched in 2004, it has grown exponentially to the aforementioned mind-boggling number of users, and shows no signs of slowing down. If you’re familiar with the site and how it works (and I’m betting that you are), then you are aware of its immense popularity and functional use as a communication tool.

But is it all good?

Certainly we live in a digital age — a faster-paced, busier, more on-the-go world, where instant gratification and lack of patience are the norm. Being able to communicate with friends and family, especially if they don’t live near you, is a very popular component of Facebook. So is the ability to reconnect with former friends, co-workers, and classmates from previous periods in our lives.

Yet another benefit is the relative convenience and ease with which we can access and use the site, especially given its popularity on smart phones. And if you’re looking for ways to network and expand your base of knowledge and potential job possibilities, you could do a lot worse.

On the other hand, it’s worth asking if we spend too much time on sites such as this, at the expense of good, old-fashioned social interaction.

Along with the ease and convenience and all the bells and whistles, are we losing our grasp and ability for real interpersonal relationship building? According to a New York Times news blog by Robert Mackey who quoted Susan Greenfield, a professor at Oxford University, “Social interactions conducted through computer screens are fundamentally different from spoken conversations — which are ‘far more perilous’ than electronic interactions because they ‘occur in real time, with no opportunity to think up clever or witty responses.’”

Greenfield said, “Real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf.”

At issue is not whether the merits of networking and re-connecting and quick and effortless communication are valid in Web sites like Facebook.

There is no debate there. The question becomes whether our growing “need” to conduct the majority of our relationship building in this way serves us well in the long term. Do we really need to post a status update every 26 minutes so that the rest of our “circle” knows what we are doing and thinking at that moment? Does your day run that much smoother if you know what Aunt Sophie’s five favorite cereals are?

Then there’s the whole issue of the “collision of worlds” — the idea that your friends list is made up of many different people from all corners of your life, be it school, family, career, friends, etc. The need to keep your online existence clean and sanitized for current and future employers, let alone your grandmother in Oregon, is a very real one.

Social networking is a good thing. It helps facilitate communication and networking and bonds that otherwise might not exist, but it is also important to not allow it to consume you to the point where it becomes your social identity.

Please post a status update so John knows what color shirt you were wearing as you read this article, or simply contact him at

jbarret1@asu.edu.


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