The many faces of Facebook

Quote

“The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.” Jon Stewart

News

This week in Britain a multiple sex offender was sentenced to 35 years for the rape and murder of a 17 year old girl.  Peter Chapman used the face of a handsome teenager on his Facebook page and lured his victim into meeting him – though he was actually twice her age.  In another case in the US, unemployed Adonis Giron, 43, posing on MySpace as a 26 year old talent scout for MTV, ensnared a 12 year old girl and raped her.  These girls were vulnerable because they had no other context than the internet to discover the nature and character of the people they met.  We call the breadth of knowledge gained through knowing someone in different contexts “multiplexity”.

Social networking sites are phenomenally successful (Facebook alone has 350 million users), in part because they allow a more frequent and sustained interaction between multiple friends and acquaintances, without having to be in the same place together.  While there are benefits in continuity of relationship, the most obvious downside is being deceived by someone you only meet via the internet, not face to face.  This “stranger danger” is not new, but it’s harder for parents to keep a protective eye on their internet-savvy children, especially when many have a computer in their bedroom. 

Fortunately, cases involving the likes of Chapman and Giron are still relatively rare.  A more insidious danger is that of “cyber-bullying” via the internet or mobile phone; this happens frequently and in extreme cases leads to suicide.  Unfortunately, the advantage of catching up with people online at home is not restricted to your friends, as messages or photos from a cyber bully can follow you everywhere also, with no longer any respite at home from such destructive behaviour. 

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There are some excellent sites responding to the issue of cyber-bullying; http://www.cyberbullying.us is an American one, http://www.kidsmart.org.uk and http://www.bullying.co.uk are British sites – among many other good ones.

Walk the talk 

Try building “multiplexity”; in developing any important relationship – especially when you need to work well with the other person – vary the situations where you meet.  Why not suggest a different context next time you meet?  If it’s usually in a formal office setting, suggest a game of tennis or a walk in the park; if the normal context is in a café, invite the person to your home.  Each new context can open up another dimension of mutual knowledge and reduce the element of the unknown in the relationship.  This helps build trust and understanding more quickly, two of the greatest assets in any relationship.

The last word

From the Bible, 2 John 12: “I have much more to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink.  Instead I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”