Blog Post 4 - "Friends" on Social Media
Hey everyone, my blog post this week centers around main subjects covered in our midterm. Social media, as discussed by Baym, remains an impersonal form of communication due to a lack of intimacy and authenticity. Part of this reason can be subjected to the amount of followers people interact with on platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. According to Dunbar, the size of human social networks stabilizes around 150 individuals, known as Dunbar’s number. He states that our brains can only capacitate to know a max number of 150 people. Dunbar further elaborates that 150 is made up of 50 friends, 15 good friends, and 5 close friends. However, with many users interacting with more than 150 people, the level of intimacy decreases further. Many friend groups contain more than five people; however Dunbar suggests that not everyone in the group has the same level of intimacy. Now applying this to social networking, people have thousands of followers that a percentage they don't even know. However these followers have an insight to one another's personal life such as family and hobbies through photos posted but would not interact in public if they had the opportunity to. A question to think about is if social media followed Dunbar's number and only allowed say 15 good friends or even 5 close friends max to interact with and share photos.
Do you think this would help with authenticity issues on social media or take away it’s purpose of interaction. Let me know your thoughts below :)
- Erika P.
Hi Erika, I like your discussion surrounding the decrease in intimacy with an increase in friends above Dunbar's number. People can easily get caught up with worrying about how many followers they have or how many likes they get in order to feel good about themselves, compared to the intimacy and happiness that friends can bring you. In reality unless you're famous or overly popular, only your friends within that 150 are going to interact with your post in more than just a like with meaning behind it. I believe there are a lot of anxieties surrounding impressing all your followers and gaining as many likes possible to build some form of acceptance by society to feel good about ourselves and at the end of the day need to recognize that like yourself, everyone else is only going to care about the people they are friends with. While hundreds can like your post, only your friends really are going to care about the content, meaning majority of those likes inherently mean nothing in terms of an actual intimate genuine like by someone who cares about you.
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ReplyDeleteHello Erika, your post poses a very interesting question. In my opinion if social media followed Dunbar's theory, which meant we were only able to share photos and follow around 15 people maximum who are described as our best/good friends the environment would be totally different. Personally if this were the case, I could see myself posting much more, caring less about what I post, commenting on more peoples posts etc., because there would be so much less content to sift through and interact with. Additionally, I feel as though I'd learn more about my followers and get closer to them because social media would be a place where we always feel comfortable, and a place where everyone who sees our content and all of the content we see is from people we know, and have a previous relationship with. With that being said, I do believe the purpose of social media is to be this large widespread environment where everything and anything could be found and where we have the ability to get in touch with anyone no matter where they are. It's hard to imagine a life where social media only consisted of communication/connections with 15 people who are closest to us rather than 1500 that we most of the time don't even know.
ReplyDeleteDear Erika,
ReplyDeleteIf people were to use Dunbar's number on social media where there are, say, 15 good friends or even five close friends to interact with and share photos, I feel like it would defeat the purpose of social media as a whole. The whole point of social media and the Internet is to connect with people outside or in proximity and reach a bigger audience. People can create a platform for themselves and even market off of it; if we were to use Dunbar's number logic on social media, it would defeat the purpose of the application and what it is meant for.
Hi Erika, I found your post very interesting!
ReplyDeleteI believe that social media takes away from intimacy because so many people have a bunch of followers they don't know. On Instagram, I have many followers I don't know on a personal level. I feel like people get so caught up in the number of followers they have and the number of likes they get on each post that it takes away from communicating and connecting with people over social media. Instagram's new feature where you can choose to hide the number of likes you get on each post I think takes some social pressure off people when they post. I feel like if I was to follow Dunbar's number on social media I would be more likely to freely post without feeling any pressure regarding what I look like or the number of comments I get, etc. On Be Real, I only have my close friends and therefore I post freely without having to worry about anyone seeing my posts I don't have close connections with and it takes a lot of pressure of posting.
Hey Erika, I really enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteMy post was similar to what you discussed about the Dunbar number and how social media impacts that number. Your statement that online communication has led to a loss of intimacy among the people you consider your friends is the argument that I most strongly agree with. I can personally connect with this. For instance, when I post a picture on Instagram, for example, a lot of people who aren't in my immediate circle of friends will leave nice comments. However, we aren't close enough to each other to have private conversations; instead, we stay in touch by leaving comments on other our posts, which increases your Dunbar number but decreases the intimacy of your relationships.
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ReplyDeleteHi Erika!
Your blog was well written, explaining how social media as discussed by Baym continues to remain an impersonal form of communication. I agree that social media lacks intimacy and authenticity, because we are so consumed by the number of followers we have, rather than our relationships with individuals. I believe that limiting ourselves to only followers that we considered our friends would help with an authenticity issue. I think a lot of the time individuals overthink what they are going to post, because they need to ensure their followers will find it engaging, leading them to interacting with their account. However it takes away from those relationships/friendships that are intimate.