"She used to be picked on and bullied because of her ethnicity," Gamboa says. "I searched for her through Friendster and found out she’s now a successful R&B artist in California. I’m so proud of her."
Gamboa and Ferer’s reunion is only one of the many search-and-find stories that are happening these days as millions of young adults discover the power of social networking websites such as Friendster, Myspace, Orkut, MeetUp, Tickle and Tribe.
Professor Gerald Goodman, PhD., University of California, Los Angeles, explains that Friendster and similar sites "are only a specie of a larger genus which is social networking in America. And it has been going on for years."
In the past, people were only able to associate with folks they ran into at work, in school, or in their community. Geography played a crucial role in building relationships, be it romantic or for friendship. But as individuals started moving around, the opportunities to make a connection out of proximity became slimmer. Patricia Wallace, PhD., director of Informational Services and Instructional Technology at John Hopkins University, raises a valid point: Nowadays, people living in one apartment building don’t even know each other.
Moreover, people are now getting more diversified that it has come to a point where our needs are so specific that we try to find someone that’s one out of 10,000, or one out of 6,375,004,772 (world popu-lation as of June 27, 2004, US Census Bureau). And because we may not meet such people while walking down the street, we need to resort to other forms of finding our match, for friendship or other things.
Enter the Internet. This technology is extending our networking capacity, enabling us to establish interaction across space with old and new friends who share our values, hobbies, and interests.
"I like the simplicity of the format," Ace Hain says, a member of Friendster.com since June 2003. "I also like the feature that shows how I’m connected to someone. Who knows, maybe down the line, I’d find out I’m connected to a celebrity!"
Main idea is reputation has a lot to do with meeting people. Tell me who your friends(ters) are, and I’ll tell you who you are. How popular are you? How many friends(ters) do you have on your list? How do these friends regard you? The comments and testimonials they write about you can pretty much sum up your personality for others who don’t know you.
This concept of social networking online also relies heavily on honesty and establishing trust. There’s a lot of self-disclosure involved. Myspace.com even asks for a user’s income and religion on the profile page. The premise is: The more you share about yourself, the more people you’ll be able to relate to and the more people will be able to connect themselves to you.
The reality, however, is people lie online. If we can fib in normal conversations where we talk to another person face to face, what more on the Internet, when the only witness is the keyboard?
And if even if we don’t lie, we can exaggerate. When we are expected to use a keyboard to create an impression to others, we have the opportunity to embellish our personality, presenting ourselves as somebody more interesting than we actually are in real life.
"Just as we try to manage the impression we make in person by wearing accoutrements or makeup, we do the same thing online," Wallace says.
Obviously, this is just one similarity. The dynamics of a face-to-face setting are different from online interaction, where a lot of constraints are dropped. Naturally, people can become more uninhibited online.
"There are things we don’t normally tell our friends personally. Somehow it’s easier to write it down as testimonials," says Billy Cole, a member of Friendster.com since May 2003.
It’s the new f-word that’s fun and gratifying; although it demands self-disclosure, unconditional trust and total acceptance of each other. But online hookups will not stop here. Goodman predicts that networking online will become more specialized as more sites will cater to specific groups in the society.
In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard sophomore, launched thefacebook.com, an exclusive website for the Harvard community that serves "not just a site for social networking, but also a directory that holds specific information about users such as their addresses, dorm locations, summer plans, etc.," says Chris Hughes, Press Guy, thefacebook.com.
"The online world can be very seductive and compelling," Wallace says.
Let’s hook up. Can you handle it?