Schwegman Blog Post #5

In Christine Rosen's article "Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism," Rosen argues that unspoken rules and communal norms in online social networks have influenced users behavior in the offline world. One of these rules or communal norms is the relationship status on Facebook. The relationship status is seen as a way to track a relationship and the official representation of that relationship to the public.

The New Atlantis is a journal of technology and society. Their mission is to reach out to scientists and policymakers and force them to think about "the ethical and social implications of their work." This journal also wants to be at the center of the movement of politics in the technological age. This article's audience is most likely directed at people who are older, and who are probably not very fluent in the social networking world. Rosen has left out those who have the most understand of social networking, who can refute or agree with her arguments because they have influenced it first hand.

Rosen establishes her credibility by stating her position at The New Atlantis. She is a senior editor there and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

To support her claim that relationship status on Facebook is the official representation of that relationship she tells a story about a friend who had a very public break up through Facebook. This is credible because I think anyone using a social networking site has seen this happen. She could strengthen her claim by giving more examples, but the overall idea and argument is very accurate. Our class also agreed that this argument is valid and that Facebook has changed the way relationships are publicized. I agree with this because I have seen this happen over and over again. My brother and his girlfriend ended up breaking up because he refused to make their relationship official to Facebook. And my best friend from back home also just ended a relationship of three years because her boyfriend ended their relationship on Facebook just as a way to show her that he was upset. This relationship change fueled so many arguments and they ended up breaking up for good. Rosen could have addressed this idea more by researching Facebook relationships better. I also realize that this article is from 2007, and at this time couples were not as dependent on Facebook for their status.