Welcome to Facebook Penitentiary!

       900,000,000 inmates. Nine hundred million users of Facebook, nearly triple the entire United States population, and it would be the third most populous country if it was one. It charges users nothing and yet it is worth over a billion dollars. I am one of those users, or should I say inmates. Facebook allows us to connect to friends, family and coworkers from the past, present and future, so why are we Facebook’s inmates?

Facebook is a glass prison that many of us have put ourselves in. Some of us are first-time offenders serving very little time, others repeat offenders bouncing in and out, and then those who are serving a life-sentence. These are not physical confinements being controlled by others, but rather social confinements given out to and by ourselves. There are only glass walls that separate Facebook and the old ‘normal’ social media. We often make the choice to reinforce the glass then to break it down, but we are not a few, we are many.

Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004, which may be a surprise to some because Myspace seemed to be on top of social media at the time, but Facebook grew to 200 million users in a year. To put that into perspective, it took about thirty years before TV viewership reached 50 million, and the web took 8 years to reach 200 million users. We are so engrossed with the social media juggernaut (half of the 900 million users accessing it through a mobile app) that when we meet someone we don’t ask “What’s your number?” rather we say “Add me on Facebook.”

Socializing was much different in the time B.FB (Before Facebook) not just before the site was created but before your social environment (e.g. work, school, or clubs) was placed into the glass walls. Think back to the lunch cafeteria during grade school on the first day or week of the school year, you walk into the room and find a spot, if you aren’t one of the first then you find a person or group of people to sit by. Maybe you see a friend or classmate, so you sit by them. You introduce yourself and your friend to someone else who sat nearby and have a conversation to get to know each other. Lunch ends and you don’t see each other for the rest of the day, but the same process happens in your other classes. The next day at lunch you sit down where you did the day before, just as most people will be doing. The person you talked to sits down and you likely continue the conversation and you feel as engaged in the conversation as you did before. Of course lunch ends, but you decide to meet back at lunch the next day. That is how, for the most part, we made friends before Facebook.

Now, on the first day of a college semester, you go to the dining commons and find a seat. Instead of finding an open seat with someone you don’t know, you pull out your iPhone (or other smartphone) and get on Facebook and message your friend to meet you. Maybe your friends are in class when you are between and vice versa, then you Facebook message or text them in class. Meanwhile someone who decides to sit next to or across from you decides on the same, whether to socialize with friends who are not there or to simply avoid the awkwardness of being alone in a crowded room. Welcome to Facebook Penitentiary! Where you are an inmate and a warden, you choose which role you want to take.

Facebook is creating a virtual social environment which is allowing us to block out the real social environment around us. As you may have seen on TV or YouTube, a commercial for the Toyota Venza with a young woman using Facebook as if she has her 687 “friends” in her living room, while her parents are out being with real people socializing. Many of us are feeding a delusion that Facebooking is active socializing, but there is a context collapse while using Facebook. Meaning that we our words, thoughts, and actions are shown on their own and not within context of our in environment that we would otherwise have in person. We also can forget how to make new connections in person, since we can converse with anyone anywhere.

Half of the nearly one billion Facebook users use or have used Facebook’s mobile app or text service. With ever expanding mobile data service, Facebook can be accessed almost anywhere at anytime. While it may allow you to continue conversations with a friend and reinforce your relationship with current friends, you begin to inadvertently alienate peers around you. Hence the the glass prison analogy, if we allow ourselves to ignore real world we put ourselves in a social prison in which we can easily look in and out of, but we are limited with social interaction outside the walls.

My first week here at Penn State I realized this first-hand. I walked up the stairs into the dining hall and handed my id to enter. I grabbed a tray and walked through the lines for the all you care to eat buffet. I grabbed a cheese burger, some fries, and a chicken breast at the first station. At the other side I saw some pizza and pasta, so I grabbed that as well. Wend to the soda machine and filled my glass with Pepsi, wishing it was Coca-Cola instead. Satisfied with what I had on my tray I start looking for a table and a couple people to talk to. There were plenty of empty tables and spaces by people, some tables were full of people that obviously had met previously, some with a few people sitting quietly. Being a little shy, I sat by some of the quieter people, but instead of greeting, I noticed they were using Facebook on their iPhones and Android smartphones. I am from Georgia and did not know of anyone of my friends or classmates going to Penn State, so I sat and ate quietly. Feeling awkward, instead of trying to introduce myself, I also pulled my phone out and got on Facebook. Maybe that’s what they were doing too, but that’s the problem Facebook has introduced to our generation.

You either think I believe Facebook is evil or should be protested, but this is not the case. With many problems there seems to be black or white solutions, but Facebook can be great to get back in touch with friends you haven’t seen in a while or for distant friends. We don’t need to escape from the glass cells of social media, however we need to break the walls so that we can use the space but not be confined to it. When we are in a lunchroom type setting, instead of going on Facebook and chatting with distant friends, individuals should find an empty seat at a crowded table. Groups should ask if a person sitting by themselves want some company, instead of finding an empty table. It is much more important to get to know someone in conversation than it is from a profile, and get to know the person, not their Facebook page.