Political and Cultural Analysis, Essay Example

Introduction

Technology has brought along many effects on the people that use it both positively and negatively. Social networking, and in particular, the use of Facebook has resulted into various effects economically, culturally, politically and even behaviorally. Irrespective of the sector that is affected, there are both positive and negative impacts that have been deduced from the continuous use of Facebook. In this essay, a critical analysis into the negative and positive cultural impacts of Facebook is focused on.

Cultural Impacts of the Introduction and Use of Facebook

Background Information- Facebook

Facebook is one among the many social sites that exist in the current world of communication. It was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, with the assistance of Andrew McCollum and Eduardo Saverin, at the Harvard University (Croft, 01). Harvard University students were the first to use Facebook in social communication and interaction. From then, more developments and customizations have been done to it to make it what is today, a global communication platform. The use of Facebook has from then generated multiple cultural effects on its users, both positively and negatively.

Positive Cultural Impacts of Facebook

Given that Facebook is a global interaction platform, there are impacts that are specific to certain cultures. There are also effects that are cross-cultural in nature, and these form the core of this discussion. There are several impacts that Facebook has come along with. In the first section, an analytical discussion on the positive effects on culture forms the core issue.

Cultural Communication

The process of communication is highly cherished by all cultures of the world. Information passage from one person or group of persons to another is vital for continuity of all the activities that take place in the ordinary course of life. Facebook has positively impacted on communication among its users. From one dimension, the chatting feature that came along with this technology is fast and efficient, especially in areas with stable internet connections.

The costs of such communications are also reduced. This is not entirely economic, in the sense that it plays a role in encouraging communication among people, at the most cost-effective rates. Still on the section of culture and communication, Facebook allows for mass communication through broadcasts. One person can communicate to as many people as possible through the message board.

Culture and Entertainment

All cultures across the world in one way or the other have their specific forms of entertainment. The cultural dances and rituals in different countries or ethnic backgrounds form an important identity to such societies. Facebook has positively changed the picture of the entertainment through addition of more means of entertainment. Self-soothing through the videos, pictures and other posts that are done on Facebook is one form of entertainment. In most cases, the posts are entirely for fun. The comments that come along with these posts from “friends” and other Facebook users remain entertaining to all members of the platform. Chatting in itself may not only serve a communication role, but also entertains the parties involved.

Cross-Cultural interaction- Globalization

Cultures have their unique features with which they are associated. The fact that Facebook is a global socialization platform gives different cultures the ability to exchange their cultures and traditions. As a result, idea generation has been encouraged through cultural integrations. There are many resultant effects that have due to these cultural interactions.

For example, the research by Vitkauskaite (846) regarding cultural exchange between the Americans and Chinese revealed that the social media, and to a large extent, Facebook have had an important role to play. There are numerous regional and personal developments that have come out of the use of Facebook use, with regard to cultural exchange.

Business Cultures

The business world is one that has its own traditions and cultures. For instance, marketing is a cultural practice in the commercial industry. Facebook has widened the market through encouragement of mass-marketing for various organizations. The number of users viewing a public post at any time in Facebook can in no way be compared to the people viewing the same advertisement over a television network, or listening via radio communication. Internet advertisement that has been put into use by most multinational companies thought the use of Facebook has changed the ancient culture for the better.

Establishment of Relationships

In all cultures, such relationships were founded on face-to-face interaction between the people involved. It will not be surprising to hear a couple confess to having met through Facebook. There are lots of communications taking place in Facebook; social, economic, political, among other forms. With the provisions for location of various people’s origins, people have come together to establish relationships.

In additional to love relationships, there are other forms of relationships that have been created with the “friends” that each user has in his account. Among the friends that one may have in a Facebook account, there are those that end up being ‘real’ in the sense that they do not only end at the digital platform. The transformation of ‘virtual’ friends into ‘real’ friends has enabled people to build long-term relations that have created benefits to the participants.

There are a lot more positive impacts that are associated with Facebook, from the cultural dimension. Most of them may call for an additional case study in specific cultures from various parts of the world. Thus, to a large extent, Facebook has positively contributed to cultural changes that have been witnessed in various societies. In addition to the benefits that Facebook has created culture, there are limitations that are associated with the use of Facebook.

Negative Impacts of Facebook on Culture

The negative impacts of Facebook on culture can be analyzed as follows.

Privacy Issues

There are facts and information about individuals and organizations that they would not like to disclose to the public. These are mainly as a result of the existing business and personal cultural ethics. Business culture provides for come extents of trade secrets in the business dealings of any given company. There are cases where competitors have posted these facts on Facebook to redistribute market shares. The use of confidential information to put up business conflicts is a major violation of the business cultural practices.

Just like for the organizations, individuals have suffered the same effect with the social networks. To begin with, the process of signing up for a Facebook account requires that the user provides personal details which also entail personal contact details. The privacy that is guaranteed to these users depends solely on the kind of friends that one has. It is not provisional that all the friends in one’s account can keep the private information about a person.

Each business is associated with its own trade secrets. When such information is exposed over social media, the cultural value of the business ethics is lost completely. In this case, there will most likely be unfair competition in the market. As a result of unfair competition, the cultural business expectations will be derailed.

There are cases where personal contacts have been used by criminals and other persons to send threatening messages to such persons. In this case, tension is created in such societies and families. Disclosure of personal information may also come through posts that other people may make, with the intentions of publicly revealing false information about the victim, due to personal differences. There are instances where abusive languages have accompanied these posts. Defamatory posts highly violate the privacy and reputation of the effected persons and are totally against the cultural provisions.

Unethical Conducts

Every culture has its own code of ethics that governs the behavior of its people. The use and users of Facebook have violated these ethics. There are posts that are against all the cross-cultural ethics. An example is a case whereby some users post sexually-explicit images and videos in public forums. The rate at which pornographic content is accessed through Facebook is particularly high among the youth. Such irritant posts have derailed morality levels in the society. Once posted in public profiles, they can be accessed by all users of Facebook across the globe. This is culturally unethical.

Impact in Language use

Language forms an important part of the society and culture. It use has been interfered through informal interactions that take place across Facebook. In most cases, the sentence structures have been modified to suit the needs of the participants in any given form of communication. Most the words, especially in English, have been reduced to acronyms. This leads to loss of value in these languages. The grammatical rules of any language need to be observed since they identify the languages with their rules and requirements. New learners find it hard to understand foreign languages due to the modifications that have been done on the languages via social networks.

Time wastage and overreliance on the social networks

Culture calls for participation in a variety of activities. Each culture is closely associated to certain practices from which it can be recognized. For example, the Indians are best known for their business cultures. Time taken in Facebook, especially by the addicted members reduces extent to which most of the operations could have taken place. From the research by Das and Sahoo (225) regarding the level to which Facebook users stay online, a sample of 1000 people are taken for the interview. Out of these, the researchers found out that 56% of the Facebook users check in at least once in a day. From this percentage, 29% were reported to stay in for the better part of their day. A majority of these were found to be the youth aged 25 and below.

This implies that most of the time that is meant to be devoted to important cultural operations is fully devoted to Facebook communications. This goes against the cultural requirements that call for participation of all members of the society towards the performance of all the tasks.

The Impact of Stranger Friends

While using Facebook, there are cases where one may receive friend request from unknown persons. In the event of such cases, there are precautions that need to be taken to ensure security of the account and the owner. The negative effects of such friends have been seen through activities such as cybercrimes. If a user accepts a friend request from such criminals, there will be added privileges to access their accounts. In this case, the criminal may take advantage of the situation to carry out criminal activities on the victim.

Impact on academic cultures

Students form the largest portion of Facebook subscribers. Universities and colleges have been the largest sufferers of the use of social media, especially Facebook. The negative effects of Facebook use on the learning institutions are to a large extent attached to internet addiction. Students spend most of their time uploading files, chatting and commenting on posts.

The academic performances of such institutions are drastically affected by the time students waste on the social networks. Each academic institution has a set of cultures and practices that are meant to drive it towards the achievement of their goals. Students’ expectations have not been realized, especially in the 21^st Century education as a result of the influence of social networks.

Breakage of Marriages and Relationships

It is a benefit that Facebook has created a new way of forming relationships that in some cases lead to marriages. Similarly, is has also created new ways that lead to break-ups and family conflicts. Social interaction over Facebook has broken up many families in the sense that spouses end up with evil suspicions about their partners. At the same time, there are people who have posted irrelevant ill-motivated posts in some users’ “walls” with the key intention of breaking up the relationships that exist between them.

Culture provides that peaceful coexistence exists between the spouses in families. Violation of this provision through Facebook directly limits the cultural expectation that the institutions have put in place.

Elimination of Physical Communication

The need for personal relations is highly advocated for by cultural norms and expectations. In the case of Facebook communication, the younger generation has transformed communication to an online platform. There is an important need for face-to-face communication. This value has been lost as a result of communication through social media of which Facebook is part. There are situations whereby relationships have been created without physical relationships among spouses. The “Facebook generation” has greatly changed the way people interact in real life situation. The value that was there in the initial communication models has greatly been impacted in negatively by the use of Facebook.

Conclusion

In evaluating the significance of Facebook to cultural practices and expectations, it appears that there are more negative effects, despite the positive ones that it comes along with. Facebook is vital, especially in the era of globalization. However, there is a rising need for regulations to be enforced so as to solve the negative effects that the use of Facebook has created on culture. Ranging from the communication issues to privacy problems, among the other challenges, there it would be reasonable to conclude that Facebook has brought more negative than positive effects on culture.

Works Cited

Croft, C. A brief History of the Facebook. Undated Extract. URL=http://charlenegagnon.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/a-brief-history-of-the-facebook.pdf

Das, B. & Sahoo, H. Social Networking- A critical Analysis of its Impact on Personal and Social Life. Orissa. KIIT University. 2013. Internet Source

Noor, Al-Deen H. S, and John A. Hendricks. Social Media: Usage and Impact. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2012. Print.

Vitkauskaite, E. Overview on Cross-Cultural Impact on Social Networking Sites. Lithuania. Kaunas University. 2012. Internet Source