Facebook: An Individualist or Collectivist culture?

Last month Catharine P. Taylor wrote about the fact that Facebook is a network of individuals.  Perhaps this statement is somewhat paradoxical, but personally I think that it’s genius.

No matter how many groups you join, events you RSVP to and places you “check-in” as a Facebook user one cannot escape the fact that you are ultimately alone in the online world of social interaction.  Every time you log in to your Facebook account you are doing so on a personal level – you use your own password, you control your own profile and you de-tag any pictures that you don’t want your boss to see.  You are in control.

People may be increasing their online presence on a daily basis, but they also are gaining more and more control over that presence.  While you may be documenting every mundane moment of your life online (how many status updates do you post every day?) you also have the ability to filter out those less-flattering moments (Cinco de Mayo 2010 anybody?).

It is this contradiction that makes Facebook an “Individualistic Network.”

People join Facebook because they want to connect with their friends – whether they’ve actually met them in real life or not.  However, when you first set up your Facebook profile you fill out information about yourself (favorite books, music, movies etc.) and choose a picture in order to create your new online identity.  Creating an online identity is a process of reinvention, like when you’re starting high school and you can be anyone you want to be because nobody knows you there.  All of that sounds pretty individualistic to me.

Once you establish your new identity online you begin to join networks and groups in order to connect with people you may know.  All this connecting may seem pretty collectivist, but the thing is that you don’t have to connect with everyone.  You have the choice to be as involved as you want to be.  You are now an individual member of a collectivist system.

Confused?  Yeah, I am too.  I joined Facebook to network with people, now old Markie Mark Zuckerberg is telling me all the ways I can prevent people from seeing my information.  Seems a bit strange if you ask me, but then again, nobody really asked me at all.

Adapted from Catharine P. Taylor’s article: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=137263