I have friends and acquaintances sometimes dropping me a friendly message about a photography competition and or some thing they have participated that requires a certain amount of likes to get first prize. It always seemed a little difficult. Do I reply "yeah sure!", take a couple of seconds to go "like" a page, and then continue with the rest of my life with a bunch of unwanted notifications about some obscure company/promotion I never wanted? Or do I say "eh...sorry I'm kinda busy now" and be seen as an unsporting and unsupporting friend?
It's a situation that either way, you will emerge a loser. I usually "like" the page and be done with it, if the person means something to me. However for those never-heard acquaintances who just mass-announcement on Facebook, sorry that's simply just 2 seconds too much of my time.
It's hard isn't it? Facebook reflects one's taste and preference, and it is personal because you can choose what you want to see, and what things you want to show. So by liking a page, Facebook will announce to all my friends that I've liked a certain page and so should you. That's the reality of social media. I also don't like to be blackmailed into liking something that I really don't and have to do it anyway because you're my friend. To look at it another way, I really do it because it means a lot to you, but I may not find the photograph that particularly pleasing.
When personal tastes and personal relationships get tangled up in a compound of peer pressure, it is often hard to say no. I suppose the friendship means more to me than simply the petty excuse of not wanting my wall to be flooded with notifications from this blogshop or the next. Yet it also serves as a reminder that perhaps our "choices" are not really our own, and are binded by societal relations - who we are with and who we are influenced by.
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