Everybody agrees that communication outlets like Facebook, instant messaging, and texting are creating new rules for dating. But people can’t seem to reach a consensus on exactly what the new rules are, says Ilana Gershon, an assistant professor of communication and culture at Indiana University at Bloomington who studied student dating for her new book, “The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media.”
For example, should the dumper or the dumpee be the first to break the news on Facebook that it’s over? One of Ms. Gershon’s students insisted the latter, and that’s what all her sorority sisters thought, too. But the “dumpee first” rule clearly isn’t universal: Another student discovered her boyfriend had not only broken up with her but was in a new relationship—all through her Facebook news feed.
“I was interested in seeing how people used technology designed for connection” in ways for which it wasn’t designed, such as breaking up a relationship, Ms. Gershon said. “It can be very problematic.”
In her book, Ms. Gershon interviews 72 people, mostly Indiana University undergraduates, about modern dating. Below are a few of her stories illustrating when messages sent through new technologies can be lost in translation:
The Text-Message Breakup: Halle first thought a text message from her boyfriend Doug saying he was in love with someone else was sarcastic, since she had always used texting to joke around. Much to her surprise, she found out not only that Doug was completely serious, but that he texts only important messages. She hasn’t spoken to him since.
Facebook Defriending: Rosie noticed she had more than 700 friends on Facebook, and defriended nearly all but 56 as a means to remove clutter from her news feed. In contrast, Sadie would never defriend anyone. When she noticed she had been defriended, Sadie believed the former friend had a vendetta against her.
When Texts/Blogs Get in the Wrong Hands: Rose’s boyfriend may think the texts he’s sending are secret, but Rose admits to showing pieces to her friends—especially when seeking relationship advice. When Frank discovered his parents were avid readers of his blog, he said it was like their “finding condoms in his wallet.”
Ms. Gershon found that technologies create more questions. If you don’t want to be dumped by text message, should you just turn off the phone to stop the conversation? Is it OK to click the “defriend” button after being dumped? If I’m angry with my ex, is it OK to show my friends the proof?
Ms. Gershon argues the biggest problem of all may be that developers of new media are not explaining to their audiences the etiquette on how to use them. She cites the example of famed inventor Thomas Edison, credited with introducing “Hello” as the proper telephone greeting.
If we had gone Alexander Graham Bell’s way of answering—”Ahoy,” Ms. Gershon said, she could only imagine how different the nature of phone calls would be today.
“A lot of the educational work on new media is focused on intellectual property rights or privacy instead of netiquette,” she said. “There’s no forces pushing people to standardize, and it definitely makes breaking up more confusing.”
7 Responses to For Students, Breaking Up Digitally Is Hard to Do
natrybas - September 22, 2010 at 9:40 am
“Ms. Gershon argues the biggest problem of all may be that developers of new media are not explaining to their audiences the etiquette on how to use them.” – should they teach the users about how to use the technology? What kind of expectation is this? Social software relies on the power of user to stretch the boundaries and bend the rules, so that to establish the ways to use and not to use. Looking forward to reading the book. Very timely :)
wmfxir2 - September 22, 2010 at 10:43 am
Geeee…at least the exchange took a few weeks back when I was in the barracks in the 60′s and the “Dear John” letters came……
miamadness15 - September 22, 2010 at 11:43 am
The interesting part is that we learn all sorts of news on Facebook. Recently, we learned about someone’s passing on the social network. Other time, it’s someone’s pregnancy. Everything seems to go through facebook first then through “normal” channels.
chluska - September 22, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Expecting new media developers to take full responsibility of creating etiquette standards seems a little like passing the buck to me. Using common sense and respect provide the foundation for any dialogue, but these seem to be sorely lacking in all levels of society today. Breaking up is hard to do, using social media to do this is the coward’s way out of the situation.
angry - September 23, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Is this book scholarship or pop culture journalism? Because it fails at both. The challenges of breaking up on Facebook, or of social media etiquette in general, have been dissected and discussed for years now — just Google it for evidence. Wired wrote about the Facebook breakup quandary in 2008, for instance. So Gershon is late to the game and doing redundant work. But that’s OK, right? Because she’s in the academy, and scholarly research digs *deeper* than those lazy reporters and bloggers ever do. Except all she seems to have done is interview a few dozen students at the school where she works, collecting anecdotes. So she didn’t exactly do much rigorous study. You can’t necessarily blame her for being out of touch; technology moves too quickly for most books. When Gershon started writing, she felt compelled to include a 180-word footnote on Page Two explaining what Facebook is. For the record, Facebook currently has 500 million users worldwide. I would argue this footnote is akin to explaining what a website is. At least she and her publishers are savvy enough to get the book out at the same time as the Facebook movie, so that’s a plus.
angry - September 23, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I was wrong; turns out the book came out back in July. This review is coming out the same time as the movie.
rdavidson - October 21, 2010 at 6:57 pm
I’m not sure who is responsible for establishing netiquette standards. Nonetheless, I don’t have much faith in “common sense” as a beacon of correct usage. In fact, I don’t think “common sense” exists: if it did, wouldn’t everyone have it?