Ellison et al’s chapter in A Networked Self discusses the motives behind making connections through social network sites, concluding that offline relationships dominantly make up the online connections. The factors that determine most of the connections include a desire to maintain contact with old friends, acquire more information about those one meets offline, and participate in online communities that represent familiar offline communities, like high school. According to their findings, “We believe the key way in which Facebook serves to support the generation of social capital is through reshaping the social network of individuals and by lowering the costs of communicating with (and thus contributing to and extracting benefits from) this social network” (137). This study presents Facebook in a very positive light, projecting Facebook as something that fills offline social holes and provides a means for people to expand interactions between friends. In my own personal experience, I have found this to be true, particularly with family and friends who live very far. I don’t often email dear friends who live in other countries, and calling them on the phone can be expensive, so Facebook has been very accommodating in that regard.

As I read Ellison et al’s cheery and seemingly accurate study of SNSs, I wondered about the growing number of people falling victim to cyber bullying. The study shows that friending people online is motivated by pre-existing offline relationship – they are already one’s friends and that one has an interest in getting to know them further. The inference of the study is that there is a positive correspondence in these offline/online connections, particularly because of the denotative use of the noun and verb “friend.” However, according to the i-SAFE foundation, “Over half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, and about the same number have engaged in cyber bullying; more than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyberthreats online; over 25 percent of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or the Internet” http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html).

Granted, these instances of cyber bullying can happen between individuals who are already friends, and I’m guessing that many instances of bullying are initiated by a falling out of some kind between friends. At any rate, I wonder what the motives behind cyber bullying are, if bullies go online to randomly bully other kids, or if the bullying experience arises from something that started offline. The Ellison et al study would imply that bullying is motivated from pre-existing friendships because those who make friend requests online do so from an already-established offline acquaintance. However, with cyber bullying happening so frequently, it begs the question, does online bullying reflect offline bullying (just as online friendships reflect offline friendships), or is Facebook an easy means for strangers to pick and choose their victims?