What are Facebook friends for?

The Pharaohs built statues. Caesar put his visage on coins. We use Facebook and MySpace.

from the October 10, 2007 edition

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It is unclear how the regular use of these sites will affect long-term behavior – especially of children and young adults who are growing up with these tools. Almost no research has explored how virtual socializing affects children's development. What does a child weaned on the youth site Club Penguin learn about social interaction? How is an adolescent who spends her evenings managing her MySpace page different from a teenager who spends her nights gossiping on the telephone to friends? Given that "people want to live their lives online," as the founder of one social networking site told Fast Company magazine, and they are beginning to do so at ever-younger ages, these questions are worth exploring.

The few studies that have emerged do not inspire confidence. Researcher Rob Nyland at Brigham Young University recently surveyed 184 users of social networking sites and found that heavy users "feel less socially involved with the community around them." He also found that "as individuals use social networking more for entertainment, their level of social involvement decreases."

Another recent study conducted by communications professor Qingwen Dong and colleagues at the University of the Pacific found that "those who engage in romantic communication over MySpace tend to have low levels of both emotional intelligence and self-esteem."

The implications of the narcissistic and exhibitionistic tendencies of social networkers also cry out for further consideration. Describing the results of her recent study that found significantly higher rates of narcissism among students, researcher Jean Twenge of San Diego State University told the Associated Press, "Current technology fuels the increase in narcissism.... By its very name MySpace encourages attention-seeking, as does YouTube."

There are opportunity costs when we spend so much time carefully grooming how we look on the Web. Given how much time we already devote to entertaining ourselves with technology, it is at least worth asking if the time we spend on social networking sites is well spent. By investing so much energy into improving how we present ourselves online, we might be missing opportunities to genuinely improve ourselves.

Christine Rosen is a fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington. A longer version of this article appeared in The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society.

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