Facebook And Technological Determinism – A Case Study

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What’s the worst thing about being a student. The stress never disappears. What’s the best thing about being a media student? As long as you can find the theoretical background that goes with an activity you love you can justify doing a case study on the topic.

I’m fresh back from the library where I went through looking for some books about the internet and society, the virtual community, reading digital culture, The World Wide Web and contemporary cultural theory, and finally the social shaping of Technology. I’m not going to read every single page but rather going to explore the notion of community and how it affects contemporary life.

I know that the World Wide Web has progressed from such a point that being online is no longer the domain of geeks but rather the empire of all those with interesting lives. Look at musicians and sites like Myspace for example. Look at the FIBA website during the FIBA 2006 world Championship. Look at everyone posting pictures of cats on various websites. It’s part of the digital lifestyle.

The premise of my case study is simple. Whereas five years ago being online was seen as something that only the least socially apt of people would do the opposite is now true, as demonstrated by the popularity of Myspace for a while, Facebook at the moment and then Virb for the near future.

Those who saw the death of society because of how technology is getting people to stay at home without conversing with anyone in their physical world is a thing of the past. Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook (the mobile version) MSN messenger – the mobile version all ensure that we’re wired whether we’re sitting in a bedroom on a beautiful sunny day or standing outside under the torrential rain. Of course, there’s no rain but the point remains the same. A world where people can only be online from behind a computer is gone hence greater sociability.

Let’s see how I manage to integrate that notion into my case study