Dotoar

Good thing, singlehandedly. The bad aspects are as always down to the users themselves and anyone complaining about the terms regarding handing over the information publishing rights to the FB staff are free to leave at any time, so that aspect is not even worth discussing. The stalking aspect is indirectly related to this as well; if you're afraid of stalkers, then just don't let out your personal information (and for god's sake, make sure to use a fake ID when legitimating yourself at the liquor store!).

And so the main point of controversy: The anti-social controversy. There's a, surprisingly big I might add, number of people, some of them even working and/or researching within the communication field, that condemns FB for shielding us from each other and are quick to point out that it's not 'real socializing'. Well, what is then? Telephones? I don't know, but I'll bet you anything that people were claiming that telephones kept us from 'real socializing' back at the beginning of the last century. Today the same kind of people probably accept telephones over internet communication. I'd say that if anything, internet in general and FB in particular has opened up our socializing possibilities more than ever. After all, it's just another way of interacting, a way that we probably still are adjusting to. I mean, never before has it been so easy to track down old mates you'd never have bothered about otherwise. One might argue that we are hiding behind virtual avatars displaying only selected and filtered information to each other. Well, that's true, but that goes for what the critics call 'real socializing' as well, doesn't it? Don't tell me you're pouring out everything about your private life to people you meet in 'real life'. It's silly to try to put down digital social media as anything less than real interaction, and to be honest, I think that there's something completely different that fuels the criticism, something that has more to do with counter-movements than with actual criticism targetting the object of study.

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