It seems to be a common perception among non-Facebook users that regular users of the social networking site do not value face-to-face interactions and are missing out on human interaction. It has become a popular enough sentiment that is has popped up in national television commercials. Take a look at this commercial for the Toyota Venza:
The message of this commercial is clear: facebook isn't real living. The young woman in the ad believes (mistakenly) that older people are anti-social and criticizes her parents for their low virtual friend count. All the while her parents are shown living it up with their real life friends in their new Toyota. No doubt this ad is targeted at those who have negative or ambivalent attitudes toward social networking.
However, the article "Grooming, Gossip, Facebook and Myspace: What can we learn about these sites from those who won't assimilate?" by Zeynep Tufekci tells a different story. The article reports on in-depth research of college student users and non-users of social media. The results showed that "the non-users reported similar numbers of very close and somewhat close friends as compared with SNS [social networking site] users." and furthermore "the number of friends kept in touch with weekly was significantly higher among SNS users." So according to this study not only do social network users have just as many close friends (to enjoy their new Toyota with) as non-users, but that they also keep in touch with more friends than non-users.
Another interesting find in the study was that "that non-users display an attitude towards social grooming (gossip, small-talk and generalized, non-functional people-curiosity) that ranges from incredulous to hostile." It's not hard to imagine that the creative minds behind the Toyota commercial are some of the same people that are antagonistic towards social networking. Hopefully, as more research is done it will show that neither users or non-users are missing out on fundamental elements of living and the misconceptions between the two groups will disappear.
Reference:
Zeynep Tufekci (2008): GROOMING, GOSSIP, FACEBOOK AND
MYSPACE, Information, Communication & Society, 11:4, 544-564
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