Over the next while I am going to be discussing social media, virtual communities and networks in my blog. Basically I want to look at sites like Youtube, facebook and myspace and how people use these sites to create virtual communities.
At the moment the facebook craze has hit Rhodes University hard. I for one am completely addicted to the site. Majority of the people I network with on facebook I see in person nearly everyday or have the opportunity to see them everyday, yet most of the time I’d rather communicate with them over facebook than in real life. This is is disturbing when I actually think about. This is one aspect that I would like to focus on, are people more comfortable in communicating virtually than in real life? Is this is first step towards living in virtual reality?
I think that virtual communities and networks allow people to feel that they belong to something, a special group. It is part of human nature to feel the need to belong to something, to know where one fits in the greater scheme of things. Virtual communities play into this idea and is something I would like to explore.
I am unsure where exactly my research into the topic is going to take me, but I am hoping to find some social and maybe even psychological impacts that virtual communities and networks have on users.
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