Social Experiment: Facebook PDA vs. Real Life

For a class project, two group members and I decided to make a video discussing the presence of PDA (public displays of affection) online. A study of numerous interactions seen between couples on social networking sites, we found that a lot of personal things are posted online. How many of us haven’t posted photo of us looking cuddly and sweet with a significant other? How many of us haven’t written semi-depressing statuses so that our friends can sympathize and be aware of our troubles? In short, the internet has allowed us to become extremely public people, even leading us to see our privacy online as different from our privacy in real life.

 
We decided to compare online PDA to public PDA as a way of displaying the difference in privacy and social consciousness when it comes to viewing other peoples’ personal business live, as opposed to somewhere like Facebook.
 
Mission 1: Sad girl status updates
A common form of public display we found in relationships was the status update. Numerous individuals, the majority of whom were female, constantly update their Facebook status or Twitter feeds with messages that were clearly directed to one individual, usually their significant other.
 
We had one of our group members stand in the middle of a busy street yelling out a number of different phrases we found on social networking sites.

“You’re just thirsty, you don’t care about me!”
“Baby, you had me, but you lost me.”
“Just leave me alone! I hate you!”
“It’s over. Stop tweeting me.”
“I can’t do this anymore!”
 
People stared. Pedestrians avoided walking near her and instead chose to walk through mud so as not to get in her way. Awkward glances and dirty looks were common. Mostly, people seemed to just think she was crazy.
 
At one point, a friend walked by and gave her a questioning stare, then asked, “Uh, what are you doing?”
 
Clearly, yelling out your thoughts and emotions in status-like form in public isn’t considered normal or okay.
 
Mission 2: Couple fight (over Facebook)
We’ve also heard numerous stories about the importance of becoming “Facebook official”. We’ve all seen relationship status changes and the stream of comments either congratulating or consoling the individual. We’ve seen wall-to-wall feeds in which the couple’s arguments are clearly displayed, and we’ve also seen people fight over Facebook. We even found a video made about Facebook ruining relationships on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4XAsoabsZ0.
 
“Who’s this girl who keeps commenting on all of your photos? Why is she like-ing everything you write?”
“Why won’t you accept my relationship request on Facebook? Who are you hiding our relationship from?”
“So, you were too busy to come hang out with me, but you weren’t too busy to go out and grind all over some freshman at the Keg? I saw the photos you’re tagged in from last weekend!”
 
Another one of our group members posed a fight in the basement of Norris with a friend posing as a significant other.
 
The entire basement was stared. People laughed. Someone put on their headphones and tried to ignore the fight. “I’ve seen that on Facebook!” someone else said. When the “couple” finally broke up at the end of the fight, someone yelled out, “Hey! She’s single now!”
 
This response reminded us just how easy it is to ignore something on our news feeds, but how oddly intrusive a fight can be in person.
 
Mission 3: Full-on PDA
I found a wall-to-wall for a couple I used to know that was made up entirely of hearts. Well, hearts and other nausea-inducing comments, too. Do we post personal and emotional comments and conversations online because we want to show off about our relationship? Maybe these people are so in love that they don’t care who knows? Each of our group members admitted that it can get a little uncomfortable to see a constant stream of PDA in an online form – so what is it like in real life?
 
We ventured back to the basement of Norris and my boyfriend and I began our own nausea-inducing conversation, pretending we didn’t care who heard.
 
“You’re the best boyfriend in the world!”
“I missed you so much last night, sweetie pie, but at least I got to see you in my dreams.”
“We’re the best couple in the world. I feel sooo bad for other couples because they don’t know what real love is like we do!”
 
People stared. People glared. People even moved away from us (and I don’t blame them).
 
We decided to turn this into a more physical test, based primarily on a number of semi-inappropriate pictures we found on Facebook of couples in very suggestive positions. To do this, we moved to a spot in Norris where there were lots of people nearby. My boyfriend and I proceeded to ‘cuddle’ in the least offensive way possible – we touched each other’s faces, held each other, nuzzled our faces. At one point, I sat in his lap.
 
Everyone around us moved away. No one wanted to sit near us, and people forced themselves to look away after giving us very awkward glances. “Get a room!” was one comment we heard (and it made us wonder, why don’t we tell people to ‘get a room’ on Facebook? They can easily start a personal message thread and have some privacy, right?)
 
We thanked everyone in the vicinity, apologized for any trauma we might have caused, explained what was going on, and left.
 
The point of all of this was to show that online PDA has taken on its own form. It’s like people have forgotten that what gets posted online is even more public than a quiet conversation between two people in a restaurant. Why is it that we feel so comfortable being public with our lives online?

We might as well be walking around with signs displaying all of our profile information right there for everyone in the real world to see.