A Virtual Solace pt 1: Social Networks

December 18, 2012 — 4 Comments

The year must have been 2005. I was a pretty young and naive kid back then, but I could always count on my school mates to keep me abreast on the latest social trends. The internet at my house only provided my siblings and I limited access because at the age of thirteen my eyes were exposed to some “grown-up stuff.” Nonetheless, I was an honest kid with a pretty strong conscience, so I informed my mother of this ‘traumatic’ experience. I imagine our conversation went something like this…

Me: Mother, a couple of minutes ago I experienced a serious breach in the morals and integrity I have clung to all my life! I am quite disturbed at the lewd content the internet seeks to show kids like me! It’s a good thing I’m responsible though.

Mom: Bakari, what are you talking about?

Me: Ummm, well I just saw some “stuff”…umm yea no big deal. However, that is not important. I just came to see if you wanted to dialogue about some of the responsibilities you and I have in protecting my siblings from running into any mischief on the internet!

About three weeks later I was under high scrutiny, and my dad installed a program called “Bsecure Online” on our computer, which blocked about everything worth being on the computer for. It kinda sucked because I thought I would gain some type of trust for being responsible and telling my mom the truth. The worst part of it all, however, was that a social network by the name of “hi5” was gaining a lot of popularity and users at the middle school I attended. It was blocked on my computer though. I was out of the loop for the longest when it came to having a hi5 page, but during that time I was able to make observations about some of the people who used this social network.

The first thing I observed was the immense amount of time these people could spend on hi5. In computer class everyone would have his or her hi5 page minimized for quick access when the teacher was not paying attention. I wanted to be cool and everything by having a hi5 page, but I was unsure if I could manage to sit at a computer for so long staring at another person’s profile and pictures. I also noticed an increase of “boy-crazy” girls at my school, or maybe it just seemed that way because up until that point they never articulated their sexual frustrations as your average 7th grade boy did. After attending a private school with the same class for years, I presume this put the 7 boys in my class at a bad disposition. This may be my excuse for why I didn’t get girls back in the day, but the girls in our class became numb to us. Their eyes grew weary of our bright faces, so we would just have to watch as they sat like fiends lusting over some cute church boy they were friends with on hi5. The irony. The third thing I observed was this site allowed introverted people to have soo much entitlement. My shy mates were able to keep in contact with friends, stay abreast with trending topics, and/or keep up with the daily lives of others without having to physically interact with them. Honestly, I was pretty jealous. Those little rascals!

The were many other things I observed while unable to use this social network, but there was one thing that stuck out to me the most. Hi5 seemed to be prepping my school mates to assume stalker like tendencies. I mean till the point where some of them became seasoned virtual stalkers. The constant access and updates this social network provided was just too much for some of my school mates!

Years later…

Now there are a mass amount of blooming social networks that are specialized in exaggerating much of what I saw years ago! They have revealed themselves to us by the names of Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

To be continued…