Social Media and Social Death: Facebook
After reading Hal Niedzviecki\'s \"Facebook in a Crowd,\" respond to the following questions: What is Niedzviecki\'s thesis, or the \"moral\" to his essay? What is ironic about the concluding lines of the essay: \"Then I took a gulp: the beer was delicious but bittersweet. Seven hundred friends, and I was drinking alone.\" What statement does the author make about Facebook and the definition of friends in society today? Can you relate in any way to Niedzviecki\'s message?
Facebook in a Crowd
One day this past summer, I logged on to Facebook and realized that I was very close to having 700 online “friends.” Not bad, I thought to myself, absurdly proud of how many cyberpals, connections, acquaintances and even strangers I’d managed to sign up.
But the number made me uneasy as well. I had just fallen out with a friend I’d spent a lot of time with. I’d disconnected with a few other ones for the usual reasons — jobs in other cities, family life limiting social time. I was as much to blame as they were. I had a 2-year-old kid of my own at home. Add to that my workaholic irritability, my love of being left alone and my lack of an office environment or mysterious association with the Masons from which to derive an instant network of cronies. I had fewer friends to hang out with than I’d ever had before.
So I decided to have a Facebook party. I used Facebook to create an “event” and invite my digital chums. Some of them, of course, didn’t live in Toronto, but I figured, it’s summer and people travel. You never know who might be in town. If they lived in Buffalo or Vancouver, they could just click “not attending,” and that would be that. Facebook gives people the option of R.S.V.P.’ing in three categories — “attending,” “maybe attending” and “not attending.”
After a week the responses stopped coming in and were ready to be tabulated. Fifteen people said they were attending, and 60 said maybe. A few hundred said not, and the rest just ignored the invitation altogether. I figured that about 20 people would show up. That sounded pretty good to me. Twenty potential new friends.
On the evening in question I took a shower. I shaved. I splashed on my tingly man perfume. I put on new pants and a favorite shirt. Brimming with optimism, I headed over to the neighborhood watering hole and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Eventually, one person showed up.
I chatted with my new potential friend, Paula, doing my best to pretend I wasn’t dismayed and embarrassed. But I was too self-conscious to be genuine. I kept apologizing for the lack of attendance. I looked over my shoulder every time the door opened and someone new came in. Paula was nice about it, assuring me that people probably just felt shy about the idea of making a new friend. She said she herself had almost decided not to come.
“And now you have me all to yourself,” I said, trying to sound beneficent and unworried. We smiled at each other awkwardly.
We made small talk. I found out about her job, her boyfriend, her soccer team. Paula became my Facebook friend after noticing I was connected to a friend of hers. She thought it would be interesting to drop by and meet me.
Eventually we ran out of things to say. Anyway, she had to work in the morning. I picked up the tab on her Tom Collins and watched as she strode out into the night, not entirely sure if our friendship would grow.
After she left, I renewed my vigil, waiting for someone to show. It was getting on 11 o’clock and all my rationalizations — for example, that people needed time to get home from work, eat dinner, relax a bit — were wearing out.
I would learn, when I asked some people who didn’t show up the next day, that “definitely attending” on Facebook means “maybe” and “maybe attending” means “likely not.” So I probably shouldn’t have taken it personally. But the combination of alcohol and solitude turned my thoughts to self-pity. Was I really that big of a loser? Or was it that no one wants to get together in real life anymore? It wasn’t Facebook’s fault; all those digital pals were better than nothing. For chipping away at past friendships and blocking honest new efforts, you really have to blame the entire modern world. People want to hang out with you, I assured myself. They just don’t have the time.
By now it was nearing midnight. My head was clouded by drink, and it was finally starting to sink in: no one else was coming. I’d have to think up some other way to revitalize my social life. I ordered one more drink.
The beer arrived, a British import: Young’s Double Chocolate Stout. I raised my glass in a solitary toast and promised myself I’d spend less time online. Then I took a gulp: the beer was delicious but bittersweet. Seven hundred friends, and I was drinking alone.
Hal Niedzviecki lives in Toronto. His book, “The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors,” will be published next May.
Social Media and Social Death
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Institution:
In the story by Hal Niedzviecki, the social media has become the best place to meet new friends. Most of the people that have accounts on the social media have more friends than they can count. Every day is a chance to meet new friends and strangers from all over the world. According to the moral of the story that Hal Niedzviecki brings out in the "Facebook in a Crowd”, the truth about social media friends is far from being plainly sustainable. While one may have hundreds of friends on the social media, majority of these acquaintances are just platonic. Most of the people would rather meet through the social media platform rather than in real life. In reality, there are no friends on Facebook, just people than one may know.
In the last line, the author refers to the time when he ordered a British imported beer to drink. In his description, the taste in his mouth was bittersweet and delicious at the same time. He then talks of having seven hundred friends he had on Facebook and yet he was drinking the British beer alone. The irony in the statement is that, in his social media account he had so many friends, but even after inviting them to the event, he found himself all alone in the bar. This is typical of the social media relationships, as most people are happy to meet new friends, but they are not committed to the relationships. In most of the cases, one can have many friends on the social media, but their lives are miserable as they are lonely. The social media cannot be used as a substitute for the normal socialising order, where people meet, interact, touch and get to know each o...