The Facebook effect

Anna Reddy

Recent cases in Australia, where people have posted sickening messages and images on tribute pages for murdered children, raise questions about social networking sites and the consequent effects on the community of allowing people unbridled freedom to publish their comments,and/or, images, on them...
Social networking sites are places where people feel they can write freely, and there is, no doubt, value in this,, but should this freedom mean that they will never be held accountable for their words or actions?
I am reminded of a time during my school years when my mother passed on a golden rule. She was a secondary teacher at the time and  Head of my year level. She had confiscated a student’s diary that had been passed around the classroom for kids to write messages to each other. The messages she read appalled her and changed her opinion of some of the students of whom she had previously thought so highly...
That afternoon she warned me that I should “never write anything on paper that I would not be happy for anyone else to read.” Of course, back then, the internet was something quite futuristic and the term “social networking site” was not in the common vernacular. This was probably a good thing because, no doubt, those awful diary messages would have been posted in cyberspace for all to read.                                                             
Silly, rude and often mean messages posted on social networking pages for anyone to read are all too common these days. I wonder now, should similar advice to my mother’s be passed on to our youngsters, but with a net-savvy focus?                                                    
I am a frequent user of the net, and, over time, have read comments posted online by friends and strangers, have seen personal messages they have written and have viewed photos of many of them -,often in unedifying situations.
Maintaining a good reputation and keeping one’s public persona unblemished is not an easy task and it can be so quickly destroyed. When my daughter is old enough I intend to teach her about the value of safeguarding her reputation and how small mistakes – like writing a dirty message in a diary, or posting certain messages online, can tarnish it.
However, Facebook and sites of the same ilk have a much broader effect on the community in that they impact on the strength of our community.
A friend of mine once commented that, while our personal world is becoming more connected and therefore bigger through the links made possible by the internet, cheaper plane travel, mobile phones etc, our communities are becoming increasingly fractured as people concern themselves with others, and with events, on a superficial level. I wonder if tribute pages are a reflection of such an occurrence. Are they a way for people to feel good about themselves: to feel as though they’ve “done something to help” by writing a fleeting message on a community board?
I question the point of tribute pages for victims of crime where complete strangers write things like “RIP”, and “I hope they get the bastard…” These sentiments, while real, are empty. The family of the deceased surely knows through community support and media attention that the whole world is horrified and feels for them. They know that everyone believes, to quote another facebooker, that “no one should die like this..” But, do these pages really help the family, or are they just a way for strangers to get involved?
Perhaps people should concern themselves more with their immediate “circle of influence” – the group upon which they can actually exert influence. I’m sure our communities would strengthen and support would be directed appropriately if people did so. At present, it seems that it is easier to show support with the click of a mouse than to go out and actively support someone..
These social networking sites can, indeed, have a positive effect, linking us all to lost friends, relatives and others, and  they are, no doubt, here to stay in some form or another. One can only hope that, in the future, people will be more responsible with what they put up for all the world to see: that they will take into consideration how their words may affect the lives of others, as well as their own reputations; and, most of all, that they will ensure that they are not slipping out of the real community into a virtual one that can only ever offer empty words.