Here I start the first discussion on the effects of social web on our family relations. I reckon it is an interesting topic for all of us and am hoping to have you all deeply engaged in the discussion. Next would be your turn :-)
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How the social
web affects the family relationships has been a hot topic in the last few years
and people have very different opinions on the matter. Some families are
concerned about the amount of time their family members, especially the
younger ones, spend on the internet and believe that the social web is killing
their family unit. Some others however, believe that it has actually had quite
some positive effects on their family relationships.
What do you think?
Does the social
web really strengthen the family relations, weakens it or perhaps is it killing
the family unit? Are we more, or less often, interacting with members of our
families, mother, father and siblings? What about the depth of our
relationships? Would it be better to sit and
have a face to face chat with your sister for a quarter or half an hour or share
a meal with your family around the table, or is it better to email your sister, comment on her
pictures on Facebook and talk to her on Skype? How often do you comment on your
siblings’ Facebook posts and pictures? Did you use to do the same thing in the past by sitting with your brother and having a look at the pictures he had taken
with his friends during his latest trip or gathering? Have you ever had a video chat with your
grandmother? How did she feel about it? Does your mum follow
your Twitter of Facebook? Does she know more about you now or in the past when
you had face to face chats?
What about those
of us who live far away from home? Would we have the met our family
more or less often without having access to internet and the social web? How
important was a hug or a kiss from your mother or sister? Would you prefer not
being able to talk to them so easily over the internet and seeing them in real
every now and then or you think you are closer together when connected
virtually? What if you are not geographically far away from the family? Is the
social web still as beneficial for you family relations?
The following is a list of positive and negative effects of internet and social media, which I have taken from a
presentation by Yvonne Gora from RMIT University in Australia (http://www.networkinsight.org/verve/_resources/Gora.pdf)
Positive
impacts are:
-
Social
relationships enhanced
-
Freedom from
time and place
-
Alternative
modes of communication between family members
-
Enables
coordination of activities, such as having a group video call for the new year or
your grandmother’s birthday
-
Develop
greater information network
Negative
impacts are:
-
Displace time
spent with the family, perhaps by spending too much time on your Facebook or
playing online games
-
Reduce
communication between family members
-
Negative
impact on health and wellbeing
-
Isolating and
encourages individualised behaviours
Which ones apply
to you and your family the most and which ones do you agree or disagree with? Have you got any personal experience? Can you add
any more pros and cons to the list?
I personally think that social web can enhance family relations. Skype and facebook are a huge benefit to families where relatives live in other countries such as the United States. I use skype a lot when my brother is abroad, due to his line of work, as well as speaking to relatives in the US. Although there are clear benefits to social web, using them such as facebook can certainly be detrimental to family relations and health. Too much can cause strain within families, as well as being detached from the rest of the world. What are your feelings on social web as a whole. How often do you use social networking tools, and what issues could you see arising from the use of these tools?
ReplyDeleteJulian, well done on the first comment on this post.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else care to comment too?
Laurence
I think that Julian is right to some degree, however, i feel that social web only enhances relationships with people outside of the immediate family (cousins, aunts, uncles etc). Obviously, interacting with them on a regular basis can strengthen bonds, however, when we look at this form of interaction in an immediate family i feel that children are more concerned with what their friends have to say than their parents. The more children use social web the more likely we are in seeing a break down of family norms and values. it is likely that more social web interaction is likely to lead to less family interaction. I feel this may be apparent in families where children do not have their parents on facebook.
ReplyDeleteIn my open social media has enhanced our relationships and in doing so has opened us up to more and more opportunities. in some cases people overuse social media by spending too much time on it and taking away the interaction between family and friends. If a child comes home from school goes straight to his room and a parent doesnt see him for the entire evening because he is upstairs on facebook. then something is definately wrong. However in some cases social media has allowed people to share information and opportunities. For instance i hear about alot of events through facebook and twitter and then in attending those events i have great social experiences. so in that sense i am using social media in a positive way.
ReplyDeleteFrom my personal opinion I believe that family relations in a traditional sense has been steadily declining, for example eating dinner together as a family whilst discussing how one another’s day unfolded. This I believe has been replaced positively in the digital age with for instance Facebook chat being preferred to than a face – to – face chat, or uncovering each other’s activities or events throughout the day by browsing Facebook’s newsfeed or profile. I believe that social web has provided an alternative and better communication mechanism that enables families to connect and communicate in an informal and more nurturing atmosphere that facilitates more interaction and discussion that children of today are more accustomed to.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinon social media has enhanced our relationships and in doing so has opened us up to more pportunities. In some cases people overuse social media by spending too much time on it and taking away the interaction they should be having with family and friends. If a child comes home from school goes straight to his room and a parent doesnt see him for the entire evening because he is upstairs on facebook. then something is definately wrong. However in some cases social media has allowed people to share information and opportunities. For instance i hear about alot of events through facebook and twitter and then in attending those events i have great social experiences. so in that sense i am using social media in a positive way.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe the social web can can both strengthen and weaken family relations, depending on the extent of use. It is particularly more beneficial for family members who perhaps live far away geographically, as it is easier to communicate and maintain relationships with Facebook, Skype etc, as you can have video chats. This type of communication could be seen better than a phone call, as you can see who you are talking to and feel better connected!
ReplyDeleteA negative aspect could be that people may rely too much on the social web, therefore family members in the home may communicate over the social web, rather than using face to face communication, so they may feel they do not even have to converse in the household. My little sister recently moved to university, so I have been using Skype and Facebook to keep in touch and make sure she is behaving too. I feel closer to her now, than when we were living together strangely.
I think there are also cases where people may be addicted and just living in a totally virtual world, which could have an affect on their wellbeing as well as personality from not using everyday communication and social skills. This could be said mainly about the young, as they spend a lot of time on the internet, therefore there may be less family interaction and more interactions with friends.
In my experience,I believe that social media has affected immediate family life, but has enhanced and improved contact with other family members such as cousins, aunties and uncles.
ReplyDeleteI myself have spent time on Facebook when I could be spending time with my family. I believe this may be the case for other users as well, as whenever I go on Facebook there are a lot of people signed in to Facebook chat which shows that a lot of people are spending time on Facebook when they could be doing other things i.e spending time with their family. However, since I have had Facebook, I have improved communication with other family members and even met family members on Facebook that I have never met in real life which supports the fact that Facebook can enhance family relationships.
I think a major factor for people breaking down their family relations because of Facebook is because they don't want to mix their family and social life with friends together.
I read an interesting article today, which expressed how twitter and facebook helped a man in hospital keep in touch with his family while undergoing a serious surgery. This was very useful for the family members, because they were able to follow each tweets, and status updates that he was posting about how he was feeling prior to his surgery.
ReplyDeletehe quotes in his article "the first thing I did—after calling my wife and parents to let them know how dire things had become—was whip out my iPhone and update my status on Facebook and Twitter."
Family members were finding it easier to communicate on social websites such as twitter, because they were able to follow every detail he was posting from what he was eating at the hospital and the type of pains he was feeling throughout the days
Social networking can really be useful at difficult times especially when you have family and friends that care but can’t be right there beside you 24 hours of the day, social networking enhances the communication more easily and effectively
There are times when family interactions are being effected by social networking sites however, when its hard to communicate face to face, social networking can be very useful way of communication.
The usage of social web amount families is often proportional to it's ubiquity, but inversely so as to it's connectedness.
ReplyDeleteFor example, while Facebook is quite ubiquitous, it is infrequently used to communicate within families as it is a selective but broadcast-style system; the things you might want to show off to you friends is often the very things you wish to keep hidden from your parents, and given this choice you may decide to exclude them.
Conversely, Skype is often used to facilitate communication within family groups, it is both relatively ubiquitous, but is maintained as a point-to-point communication tool and thus the information revealed is limited to a transient, per session basis allowing for discretion in what is said to some parties, but not others.
Twitter provides an interesting inflection point on the idea of connectedness, while interaction with family tends to decrease with an increase in interaction with others, Twitter with it's totally public updates result in a different usage model. The brevity of the truly public messages appears to result in a more "grown-up" use where the users might discuss their new mobile phone, but not how drunk they got, lending itself more easily to inter-family communication.
I generally think the effect in which social web has on family relationships varies greatly, when it comes to the positive and negative nature of the concept.
ReplyDeleteI’ll start with the positives first, applications like ‘Facebook’ and ‘Skype’ have been used widely to bring family members together from around the world. I personally have met relatives for the first time on ‘Facebook’. This kind of interaction (pictures, instance messages, videos etc) I feel, bridges the gap of these long distance family relationships and in some way makes up for lost time.
Again, the positive nature of social web allows you to be updated on the latest activities which are happening in your family member’s lives e.g. a distant relative might be getting married and the first place you might hear about it, is on ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’. Furthermore, I guess this option would be much cheaper than multiple personal telephone conversations, whether it is overseas or within the UK.
In contrast, there are some negative implications of social web which impacts family relationships such as:
It seems that children spend more time expressing themselves on ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘Blogger’ rather than expressing these views to immediate family members, which has resulted in various misdemeanours e.g. the recent riots within the UK and a number of bullying instances. I guess this is because computer illiterate parents don’t seem to know what their children are up to anymore.
In addition, there can be an argument that social web seems to weaken family relationships in terms of poor communication between family members in real life, as children seem to mask their emotions and true identity. Combining this statement with applications like ‘Facebook’ and ‘Bebo’, which encourages you to list personal information like: who you are, where you work, your favourite book, movies, music, TV programmes, religious and political beliefs, your studies and your interests. This appears to worsen the issue, rather than improve it. Reason being, it appears that parents and guardians nowadays don’t seem to know some of the answers to those questions themselves, regarding their own children, whereas a stranger will.