Facebook, Social Media, and Engagement

Facebook as a tool to initiate and manage shared actions on critical societal issues are undisputed. This is less because of inherent qualities in this platform, as it is due to its near global reach. In all these actions, the overwhelming majority among us are far removed from the locus of action (in geographic terms), and in degree of closeness to the focus (in emotional terms). Many of us get involved through friends, in a type of snowballing effect. And, for most of us the extent of our involvement is limited to using the "like" function, and to adopting symbols associated with an action.

Following the recent terror attacks in Paris, specifically the attack on the journal Charlie Hebdo in Paris, many Facebook users began using a couple of specific symbols, chief among which is overlaying the profile picture with the colours of the French flag. I did so, as did hundreds of thousands other Facebook users.

This adoption and use of these symbols cuts to the essence of some of the implications of this aspect of global social media. We are all involved, up to a point. For most of us this is because we cannot do more, removed from the scene of action as we are in geographic terms.

The danger is, however, that we can easily end up becoming too complacent in our use of and relationship with social meda, and that we become primarily concerned with showing off our involvement and care through using these symbols. As a result, we sit back, proud to have taken a stand and to be able show it to the world. We watch the world unravel from the safe position of our couches, and celebrate by eating each other's likes as we would popcorn. Is this correct?

Lars T Soeftestad

Notes
(1) The text is adapted from a note titled "Facebook and the world", posted on my Facebook profile, 19 November 2015, URL: www.facebook.com/soeftestad
(2) Image credit: Charlie Hebdo. This is the magazine's cover on 3 November 2011, for the occasion renamed Charia Hebdo ("Sharia Hebdo"). The word balloon reads "100 lashes if you don't die laughing!"
(3) Permalink. URL: https://devblog.no/en/article/facebook-social-media-and-engagement
(4) This article was published 30 July 2016. It was revised 15 August 2018.