Re-Reflecting on My Media Use
“reflecting on social media” and saw some drastic changes in my
opinions on media and general media usage. After working with new
platforms (posterous and twitter) and engaging in weekly discussions
that shaded my black/white opinions of certain forms of media (AIM
specifically) I am approaching a more nuanced and detailed portrait of
the technological landscape we live in, and where I fit in that
picture. In my first prompt I began by outlining my media usage: that I use my
gmail on a daily basis, have a facebook and tumblr, even if I don’t
check in with either daily. Along with exploring the frequency and
cataloging the media I use, I focused on the types of media I found
annoying. For example, I pegged Twitter as narcissistic—an entire
platform created for users to engage in a constant real-time streaming
of status-posting (a feature I have never used on Facebook). But once
I started using Twitter (and had the fun of setting up the
kayla8thecity handle) I realized that the same way blogs can be a
string of self-indulgent pithy remarks or a series of thoughtful op-ed
articles, Twitter can take many forms. I keep coming back to the google chrome “the internet is what you
make of it” slogan because I think it defines the notion that
experience and exposure influence our relationship to media. I enjoyed
following prominent figures on Twitter and reading news stories via
links posted to Twitter—things I could not have predicted when I
started. When I look at my involvement on Twitter I see the way that social
media can be used to create a more personal connection between a brand
and a consumer. I often logged onto my Twitter for this class because
I had a specific Tweet I wanted to add to our class feed—but as the
weeks went on and my friends began tweeting me without the #csmt11 tag
I found myself going on on to scroll through my feed for funny celeb
posts or interesting advertising campaigns. The first time I retweeted something I began to see how we curate a
Twitter feed based on personal relevance. I also realized Twitter gave
me a channel to reach out to people I otherwise would feel
uncomfortable contacting. For example, the Beauty Editor at Teen Vogue
is a really sweet lady with a love for Essie nail polish that rivals
my ability eye a strangers’ nails and guess her chosen shade. I
tweeted Eva a response about some nail polish related tweet and she
tweeted me back and we ended up having a twitter conversation, ending
with her suggesting a favorite nail salon I should check out—that nail
salon then tweeted me and Eva together saying thanks for being their
PR! In the exchange Twitter offered me an opportunity to talk to Eva
in a way that removed the hierarchy that is palpable within an office
setting and offered a business an opportunity for the best type of
press available, 3rd party endorsement (with a paper trail!) for the
salon. While emails are still the medium I use with greatest frequency. I
notice that the way I read my emails has changed. I got an iPhone
during this semester (mainly because I wanted to use a touch screen to
scroll Tumblr and Twitter on the go) but it makes it so easy to delete
emails I find myself giving even less time to each individual email.
In this way having greater technology in my hand has lessened my
attention span. Baym speaks of the new technology’s ability to grant
us “separation of presence” but simultaneously subjects us to new
forms of control, surveillance and constraint (Baym, 4). I notice how
this separation of presence gives us a chance to explore who we are in
a multi-faceted way. When I first read that Baym point I could only
focus on the control and surveillance and all the dangers these new
forms of media veiled. I guess in a way the pervasiveness of the
surveillance indicative of social media is more apparent than
hidden—when I post on a friend’s facebook or post a tweet I know I am
adding my thoughts to a public. Whenever we become a part of a public
we know that our action will be surveyed. I guess my re-reflect makes me think of a quote I read once that John
Maxwell said about a person needing to be smart enough to highlight
one’s own mistakes so he can correct the err and profit. As I am not
an entrepreneur I am not thinking in terms of literal profit, but in
terms of enriching my personal experience and elevating my
professional knowledge base, making me (hopefully) more desirable to
future employers. That said, most of my of my media use still exhibits
the characteristics of “a privatized media
rich bedroom culture:” sitting on my laptop in my bed connecting with
images/people through technology but in solitude (Baym, 23). But by
gaining exposure to new platforms and developing a comfort level, with
say Twitter, I am strengthening a muscle that is an undeniable asset
in the job market. While I am not too sad that AIM was forbidden in my home—and still
think it was because my parents had
what David Nye would call a “dystopian reaction” to the media, I can
see how real-time chatting actually makes the person more responsible
than texting—since the cadence on an online chat can’t stop without
the sender/receiver reading into the pause, whereas texting is dotted
with pauses, some natural and others strategic and all excused due to
the medium. I know I spoke about archives in my first blog post. At that time I
was reflecting on the manipulation of an
archived conversation, which I said was unique to instant messenger.
Now I am thinking in broader terms and realizing that all mediatized
archives are manipulated or re-versioned to fit a purpose. For
example, an iPhone is a mobile and fluid personal archive that acts as
a warehouse for all my text conversations. But it allows me to delete
the conversations that I don’t want to see or delete a specific
message that failed to send, etc. Examining archives again becomes
especially interesting after rereading “Social Network Sites:
Definitions, History, and Scholarship” because the idea that users
“type themselves into being” can be extrapolated to the sentiment that
users store parts of themselves selectively, curating an
online/mediatized being (211). The techniques we use to shape how
others see us within the sprawling social media terrain interests me. Kayla