Monday, October 1, 2007
6. Happy Birthday
The online social norm that I am going to discuss involves facebook, specifically the writing on a friend’s facebook wall when it is his or her birthday. People come to know about this norm by a few simple reasons. First, on the right side of your personal facebook homepage, there exists a list of all your friends who are having birthdays today and in the next two days. You see your friends’ names and write a quick happy birthday message on their walls. People also come to know about this norm because when you look at a friend’s facebook wall, you can see the million of happy birthday posts from when it was your friend’s birthday. Wallace describes the Leviathan on the Internet as, one to which most people willingly give up freedoms in order to preserve the value and energy of the medium itself. She continues by saying that there is sill very little formal Internet regulation in most countries, but the Leviathan is there anyway because we want the Internet to flourish, and sense it will not unless we build a framework of trust and establish means to ensure compliance with, at the very least, netiquette. The Leviathan enforces this norm because if you do not write a happy birthday post on your friends’ walls it is unlikely they will write a post back on your birthday. Writing a quick happy birthday message is basically an unwritten rule on facebook and a common courtesy. One theoretical issue that is brought up in chapter 4 of Wallace’s book is conforming on the net. Conforming on the net deals directly with facebook and the birthday wall post. For conforming on the net, Wallace uses the style of an email as an example to make her larger point. She explains that emails are informal and spontaneous. The birthday post on the facebook wall is much quicker and easier than sending a card, and no one leaves an in depth birthday message on the wall. The post is usually two words, “Happy Birthday.” When one leaves a birthday post that deviates from the two word “Happy Birthday it clearly appears out of place. Another theoretical issue that Wallace discusses in chapter 4 is finding others of like mind. This deals directly to facebook and the birthday post because most people on facebook are of like mind. They leave basically the same birthday message. In conclusion, the social norm of leaving a quick “Happy Birthday” on a friend’s facebook wall deals with many theoretical issues discussed by Wallace.
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2 comments:
The standards related to the sending of birthday wishes to friends on Facebook are a very interesting selection of online social norms. I agree with your claim that writing a short birthday note on a friend’s wall can be considered an unwritten rule of Facebook courtesy. Just as you said, I think that people come to know of this norm through the list on the homepage of the day’s birthdays as well as through observing all the other birthday messages that other people have written on your friend’s wall. While I think you do a good job of relating your Facebook birthday social norm to Wallace’s example of the style of emails, I am not sure I completely agree. Wallace says that people online have not only come to conform to the idea that emails are an informal form of communication, but that formal emails now seem to stand out as odd. You believe that a birthday wall post that strays from the simple two-word “Happy Birthday” seems out of place. I think it is important to note who is sending the birthday message in order to determine if the plain and easy two-word message is an odd choice. If it is one of your close friends’ birthdays I think it would actually seem bizarre if you could only muster a short two-word birthday wall post. In contrast, if it is not a close friend’s birthday and the person is more of an acquaintance, then writing a long, drawn-out birthday message would indeed appear out of place.
Mallory,
I really enjoyed your post because the topic is something everybody in this class recognizes and observes, even though it seems like just a small part of Facebook. I agree with your comment that is has become a standard to write on your friends' walls for their birthday and that the action is reciprocal. It seems like it would be such a small detail of the Facebook etiquette but it truly plays a large role. With the introduction of the homepage, there are really no excuses for forgetting a friend's birthday. The only way to recognize this is to post on their wall. This has become such a prominent social norm that its effects are clearly visible. I've had friends that I've spotted checking their wall posts five or six time on their birthday just to see how many people had wished them a happy birthday. This concept has become an accepted part of Facebook.
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