This may
have happened to me fairly recently, and by that I mean about five minutes ago. I
was pursuing Facebook, procrastinating on my homework like every good college
student does, and I clicked out the birthday icon and saw “Today is Dylan’s
Birthday… Wish him Happy Birthday”. Now I consider Dylan one of my good
friends, I’ve known him for probably 5 years now. In the old day everyone knew
all their friends’ birthdays, just like they knew all of their friends’ phone
numbers too. The dark ages, if you ask me. Clearly technology has evolved and
we have a cellphone to store hundreds of numbers and Facebook to tell us when
our friends’ birthdays are. Facebook, though it seems trivial, has greatly
changed our society and has a very unique rhetoric to it.
http://www.someecards.com/
First of
all there is the infamous status. At the top of the page there is the empty box
with the words “what’s on you mind?”. Usually I don’t fill in this box, mostly
because what’s on my mind has to many profanities for an acceptable Facebook.
As of late though I’ve posted my fair share of THON status, which I love seeing
all over Facebook. What people write in this box is interesting. “What’s on
your mind” is a fairly normal question to ask someone. However never would I
respond to this verbal question with a touch THON status, that’s just weird.
Similarly, posting a status that actually says what’s on your mind is equally
weird. No one wants to know that you are wondering, “how on earth they built
the titanic, did they start in the water, but then there would be water in it”,
but I digress.
This brings
up a great point that the rhetorical situation is key. The same question asked
verbally as opposed to Facebook requires very different answers.
This is so true! Technology advancements are changing so many aspects of our daily lives. When I actually think about this, it seems a little crazy to me. To us now though, this is perfectly normal and we have become entirely used to it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that is all based on situation. Talking to a friend in person (obviously someone that has made the "good" friends list) and talking to a bunch of "facebook" friends (people for the most part you don't hold regular conversations with) are two extremely different things. It is very interesting to see just how much technology is changing our society.
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