A world without Facebook? For some difficult to imagine. 15 years ago, the social network went online – but it can keep? A conversation about the beginning, the future and the criticism of Facebook.
It is undeniable: social media have changed the way we communicate and live together. How exactly – so many scientists, including the Media psychologist Sabine deal Trepte.
DW: Mrs Trepte, 15 years ago, Facebook went online. If you think back to the beginnings, what comes to your mind first?
Sabine Trepte: Well, Yes, in Germany, Facebook has started a bit later. Here there was, first of StudiVZ and the it was definitely very relevant and has a lot of made with the Germans. It was the first social network, and that was for many people the first big “Hello” to the Internet. There was a reason that they used the Internet.
What exactly did the people there?
The Same as on Facebook. However, the terms and conditions were a bit different, because the people with your clear name registered only, but it is also completely public Profiles. You could go through a normal Internet search in the Profiles of the people and look at what you have done during the day or eaten and could virtually really. So, this was the purest form of social media, and really a very, very successful Format, which has revolutionized Online communications.
Media Psychologist Sabine Trepte
Today the Germans are known for that they are very cautious with your data on the Internet. This was not an issue?
No, it has a head and that was the reason why we have all of the Privacy research begun: because we were surprised. This was already going against Facebook with the advent of Blogs, where suddenly completely different rules of communication were face-to-face. There was then talked very openly about how your day was – without a strong focus or cropping on situational contexts or specific groups. If I, for example, in my work on some reports, then that is of course completely different than with my best friends Friday night at the kitchen table. And this differentiation was not in the blog just so visible.
And how it then came to the exchange from StudiVZ to Facebook?
First there was Facebook in the United States. And when Facebook came to Germany, knew the people already, what was the matter, and some – I have started, for example – directly on Facebook USA. Facebook has made the final with a lot more money in the back much more professional. And they were, of course, international.
What has developed in Germany, this strong awareness of the need for privacy?
So, we have made in 2009 in the framework of the “night of knowledge” at the Hamburg Media School courses on the subject and discovered an incredible public interest. The question was: How can I make on the Internet, on StudiVZ, Facebook, and more, what pleases me so much, and at the same time, but my privacy protect? I have the impression that at this time such a consciousness has taken place.
And why in German? In the USA, it seems to be the theme of quite a different deal.
This has, I believe, quite different reasons. First of all, it is so, that in the USA “Reputation Management” (i.e., the presentation of self in Internet, Anm. d. Red.) a very important subject – more than us – and can operate just fine on Facebook. Another reason is that we have in Germany, generally, a very broad media landscape that informed not only on Facebook, but on any kind of service and their benefits but also risks. We are more informed than people in many other countries. And thirdly, it has to do, in my view, also something to do with our history. We are already socialized to be very critical, precisely because we are aware of because of the Surveillance by the Stasi and during the third Reich for the theme.
The image in front of Text: The younger Generation is in to Instagram on the go
If we look to the future: Where do you think Facebook is in 15 years?
So when I look at my students, then my impression is that its just no longer interested in exchanging text-based information with others and in public. You make it about the Messenger. If with a larger audience or public, then you may want to replace the image-based, because there is just again a larger semantic space is opened, since there is more room for interpretation. Say: The migrated a few years ago, all Instagram. The younger people, 25 years upward, have Facebook Accounts. But the use read before all things, to older people, for example, from your family to share and also messages. Today’s students are actually on Facebook. The use of Instagram and Messenger.
I could not imagine, therefore, either that there is a Facebook even that it is just a discontinued model that is not online, but only for sentimental reasons, it is used as a beautiful reminder diary: What I’ve done, actually, between 2008 and 2015? Or but Facebook manages to invent again.
Facebook has changed a lot in the last few years already – from a communication platform to information platform, and that is exactly what the company wants to expand still more. You think that is a concern?
No. Concern is only when the people think that it is the only information platform. It is operated very much the black painting, but I see it a bit differently. The people know that they will get delivered to your mail from a provider Facebook. And to say that you have the opportunity to: This is me too one-sided. I know as a User that I always delivered what I have previously selected. So the Problem is not Facebook, but the basic problem arises generally when people use only a news channel.
Media literacy: also – but not only – a topic for school lessons
Keyword: Media Education?
Yes. It must be clear that you have to look at different sources, and you should know which of normativity, what is the revenue model behind a deal, like a deal, for example, is financed. Many students don’t know, if you turn to the Bravo, which is editorial and which is the display part. The least read Newspapers and so they are guided in their Childhood and youth easy approach to media reception. And I think that’s much worse than that, Facebook has established itself as a news portal.
This is an appeal to the schools?
No, this is more of an appeal to the children and the parents. It can’t all be mission of the school. What the school can afford but, nevertheless, is that it offers flexible teaching formats, in which there is a teacher change is possible, to read a newspaper with the students. This is currently not possible. The teachers are in a corset of the education plans, which makes them didactic and inflexible. It is a misleading quantity. If teachers had more time, they would also bring more of a newspaper and with their students to discuss. And this should happen not only in a subject like social studies, but also in elementary school and in the early classes of the sub – level in all subjects.
Sabine Trepte is Professor for media psychology at the University of Hohenheim. Her research interests are in the field of media psychology with the topics of privacy and self-disclosure in the Social Web, the psychological processes of knowledge acquisition with the political news media and Social Identity.
The Interview was conducted by Petra Lambeck.