Imagine a large pub in which many groups of people sit and drink. There are groups of all cultures and creeds, men and women, marrieds and singles, teenagers and adults. The atmosphere is informal and people in the groups chat, exchange personal information, show pictures, and create friendships and romances. The prevailing culture in the pub is that if a member of one group wants to join another group he is accepted, especially if he knows one person in the new group. Additionally, the owner of the pub is constantly making recommendations about new people you might like to meet and get to know. Becoming acquainted with someone new does not even require leaving one’s group or making awkward introductions; from the comfort of your own group you can listen in on the conversations of another group and even participate without showing your face. Now imagine the digital counterpart of this pub in the virtual world and you will have an accurate picture of Facebook.
Need more be said?
A particularly severe danger of social networking is the way it serves as an escape from harsh life situations into a virtual fantasy world. This escape takes two forms. One is that virtual relationships are just that — virtual. People engage in them for their own reasons for as long as they feel like it and then … nothing. They can just disappear at will. The problem is not just the devastation felt by the person who is “dumped.” The built-in escape clause means that there is no real responsibility structured into the relationship from the start.
In the second form of escape, a person creates a fictitious image of himself online. Shy or inhibited people may act out in ways that would be unthinkable in the real world. A person dealing with an obesity issue may post a fake picture of himself with the desired body image. One may appear rich, successful, suave, beautiful, or popular, or possessing any other desirable attribute. With the virtual world being so comforting and alluring, people may lose the strength to take the steps necessary to improve their real lives, withdrawing instead into an online fantasy world.
A more subtle aspect of social networking is the damage wrought to the genuine concept of friendship. Friendship implies responsibility and reciprocal emotion. It is about a commitment to another individual, whether convenient or otherwise. We treasure a limited number of close friendships over a broad number of superficial one. On social
networks, however, “friends” are perceived as a group of people to whom one brags and shows off. Friends are trophies, status symbols — the more “friends,” the better. And when a friend becomes inconvenient he can be “defriended” with the click of a mouse.
Another devastating effect of social networking is that it engenders a lack of privacy. Social networking or (for the ancients) blogging about personal life carries the implication that the more one shares about his private affairs, the better. The social networking barons have created a philosophy about the good that will accrue to humanity by casting off all restraints of privacy. It begins with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the like that encourage people to constantly “share” their activities and emotions with the world. Moving right along, we have Foursquare and similar networks on which a person continually broadcasts his location in real time. Finally (for now) we have Snapchat (an app that allows one to send pictures that erase themselves automatically after being viewed) that encourages the user to send pictures of potentially embarrassing or compromising situations and poses. Contrast this with the Torah perspective that declares, How beautiful are your tents, Yaakov, which Chazal explain as meaning that the doors of their tents did not face each other so as to ensure privacy.
As we discussed in the book (Day 48), digital technology has a profound negative impact on family and social life. Relationships need to be nurtured. The common family structure — living under one roof, sharing mealtimes, and encountering one another numerous times during the day — are not just byproducts of the economy of a group
of people utilizing one dwelling. Sharing experiences, emotions, small talk, and serious discussion create and reinforce deep and loving bonds. Increasingly, screen time is supplanting these healthy interactions.
To add insult to injury, the encroaching screen is often one of a social nature (text message, status update, etc.) that sends the implied message that the “remote other” is more important than the present family member. The same applies to social situations. Taking a call while with friends, or even a (supposedly) surreptitious glance down at a screen, besides being rude carries the implication that present company is second to whoever is on the line.