Stephen Marche's cover story for The Atlantic confronts the question:
A considerable part of Facebook’s appeal stems from its miraculous fusion of distance with intimacy, or the illusion of distance with the illusion of intimacy. Our online communities become engines of self-image, and self-image becomes the engine of community. The real danger with Facebook is not that it allows us to isolate ourselves, but that by mixing our appetite for isolation with our vanity, it threatens to alter the very nature of solitude. The new isolation is not of the kind that Americans once idealized, the lonesomeness of the proudly nonconformist, independent-minded, solitary stoic, or that of the astronaut who blasts into new worlds. Facebook’s isolation is a grind. What’s truly staggering about Facebook usage is not its volume—750 million photographs uploaded over a single weekend—but the constancy of the performance it demands. More than half its users—and one of every 13 people on Earth is a Facebook user—log on every day. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, nearly half check Facebook minutes after waking up, and 28 percent do so before getting out of bed. The relentlessness is what is so new, so potentially transformative. Facebook never takes a break. We never take a break. Human beings have always created elaborate acts of self-presentation. But not all the time, not every morning, before we even pour a cup of coffee.The idea of leaving Facebook has accrued a certain appeal lately. What's amusing about the process of deleting a Facebook account is the emotional blackmail the company attempts to employ as it begs you to stay. I recall being greeted with an almost parodic-looking page with photos of friends and captions like, "...will miss you." It was — in a word — weird. Most striking of all was the interesting claim, "Your 358 friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you." Because, of course, Facebook is now the only conduit for communication that exists in the world. Sorry, guys: sometimes I forget. On the subject of whether or not social networking sites are having the opposite-to-intended effect of making us lonelier, more isolated creatures, I'm still undecided. Claude S. Fischer rebels against the idea put forth by Marche:
The first systematic studies of the Internet’s social side suggested that early adopters were hiding away from people. But as Internet use became widespread, the findings changed. Robert Kraut, a leading researcher who had raised early warnings explicitly recanted; the resulting Times headline was, “Cyberspace Isn’t So Lonely After All.” People using the Internet, most studies show, increase the volume of their meaningful social contacts. E-communications do not generally replace in-person contact. True, serious introverts go online to avoid seeing people, but extroverts go online to see people more often. People use new media largely to enhance their existing relationships—say, by sending pictures to grandma—although a forthcoming study shows that many more Americans are meeting life partners online. Internet dating is especially fruitful for Americans who may face problems finding mates, such as gays and older women. Finally, people tell researchers that electronic media have enriched their personal relationships.Referring to Marche and other writers operating in the same field of thought, Fischer writes, "Remind me not to “friend” these guys; they sound so sad and overwrought." Will do. Given the appeal of account deletion, I often wonder while trawling through the newsfeed why I don't simply delete the damn thing. Surely I'm not one to be swayed by the pathetic, imploring whimpers of the "Please Don't Leave" account de-activation page. Perhaps I am. Or — and this is more likely — perhaps each of us has become married to Facebook in a way, and though it might be an underwhelming relationship, it fulfills certain needs. You could take birthdays on Facebook as an example. While perhaps laughable in one sense or another, the birthday greetings one receives are reliably day-brightening. And not even that can account for the occasional glimmers of genius demonstrated by friends with a comedic streak or the trivial insights status updates can and sometimes do reveal, the entertainment the whole silly thing can bring, however frivolous. One need only wait for the birthday greetings that make themselves reliably conspicuous each and every year to understand Facebook's obscure and inexplicable, if perhaps fleeting, charm.