Communication Within Social Networks

After reading the articles assigned regarding Facebook and other social media sites, it became rather disturbing to think that the idea of socializing holds a completely revitalized meaning than it did a century ago. This common notion that we find it easier to interact virtually opposed to in real life, says a lot about how dependent we've all become on social media to hold and maintain relationships with people in real time. Or rather we'd like to think they do...
   
Personally, I'd say at times social media can be helpful in allowing us to stay connected with those that may live far from us, and those outside of our daily social circles. But more often I feel these networks can do more damage than anything. Especially regarding relationships.
 
In relation to the South Park clip that was shown in class today, as silly and as over the top some of those situations may seem, it actually depicts dead on situations I've found my self in in real life. The jealousy that can arise when dating within social networks is unreal, especially on Facebook. There have been times in past relationships where I have found that making the wrong move on Facebook could lead to a swift unexpected argument in no time. Liking a different girls picture, posting on another girls wall, being tagged in photos with another girl, failing to reply to a message or wall post within a certain amount of time, or even simply being logged or making some kind of online movement at a time where I stated I'd being doing something else could lead to tension. I'm sure we've all fallen victim to this dilemma at some point in some shape or form, some probably more than others but I guess thats just a matter or how tuned in you are.

The same rules can apply to texting or communicating via text in some form. It's so easy for a meaning to get misconstrued if you don't use the correct wording or context. For example, in one of the articles it stated how many individuals write "haha" or "lol" within messages in which they are not realistically laughing at all. They do this in order to not come off as too sincere or "overly earnest". I found that interesting because ever since I started texting (I actually think I picked up a majority of this jargon from those ancient AIM days...) I have always done this, but I never realized why, or why everyone else did it, until today.

Despite all the benefits social networks and digital media can provide us, when it comes to the communication aspect I feel it can be a bit more difficult at times than communicating in real life. There's almost like a science to it... I'm not saying I'm completely against it, I think these networks are excellent for gathering information quickly, organizing groups, and other things of the sort. I just think that simple face to face conversation or even conversing on the phone is still and most likely will always be the more efficient forms of communication.