Reflecting on Social Media
I use email (gmail specifically) on a daily basis and I also often use
facebook and tumblr as Jessica and Clarke both mention. I recently
started using twitter (kayla8thecity is my twitter handle and so far
creating it was one of my highlights with the platform!) I bbm a few
close friends daily and text with others (who have iphones).
Emails are the medium I use with greatest frequency. I notice that the
types of emails I send have a large range of segmented audiences: I
use email to contact bosses and external companies that I will have
professional relations with, such as my moving company. I used it to
engage strictly on a personal level with: my Aunt Ellen who lives in
CA, my parents (which blurs the lines since I use email for “business”
matters i.e. itemizing NYU costs) and occasionally friends (if not,
facebook). 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 I
choose between sending emails or facebook based on these new forms of
control. Here the pervasiveness of the surveillance indicative of
social media is both apparent and hidden—when I post on a friend’s
facebook wall I seldom think about someone I haven’t seen/spoken to in
years surveying it. But a small part of me is conditioned to expect
that very possibility and is often willing to take the opportunity to
converse independent of temporal constraints.
I also use tumblr, because it feels like virtual collaging to reblog
images; I like as a source of private time and stress-relief. A lot
of my media use 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).
I find gmail the most useful of the social media I engage with, since
it affords me flexibility because it is asynchronous and does not
limit characters like texting. I like BBM on blackberry but find the
feature that allows the sender to view when the recipient has encoded
the message a double-edged sword. Rather than let the rhythm develop
organically this feature of BBM increases the cadence of a
conversation dramatically since the message becomes marked as read
—which depending on the topic of conversation can cause a totally
different sub-message to arrive.
A more broad reflection of a temporal nature brings me to my first
interaction with social media. It was indirect. I was a 7th grader who
had just moved and all my new school friends requested my AIM screen
name. AIM was forbidden in my home—probably because my parents had
what David Nye would call a “dystopian reaction” to the media (Baym,
28). I guess social media insighted fear for my parents, who didn’t
want me to be bullied (or worse be a bully) so I was mandated to role
of outside observer. Regardless of my feelings on the matter 7th
grade Kayla was in a situation that mimics the global issue of the
digital divide of those who have Internet and those who don’t have
access to it (Baym, 18).
Seeing printed records of conversations passed out on the bus I too
began to see AIM as an agent of doom (28). The manipulation of the
archived conversation was unique to instant messenger. If the same
conversation had occurred in-person it’s recording would be more
difficult to replicate or alter. I realized I was most comfortable in
my mandated observer role because I didn’t like what AIM was “doing”
to my friends –a typical technological determinism response. I saw AIM
as a casual agent that changed my friends in ways that they had little
power to resist. While social consequences of using AIM could be grim
with people trusting the ephemeral nature of the space, I now see how
the intent of the sender/receiver pair colored the medium, an
observation in line with the social constructivist position (24).
What struck me was how my friends appeared incapable of reflecting on
the very real possibly their conversations would be archived,
potentially edited and then distributed.
I think AIM is a great example of Baym’s “New Media, New Boundaries”
section since as I gained exposure to this form of communication I
tried to understand how it operated. I wondered why everyone had “xox”
proceeding and following their username, and why no one was using
their real names? Examining this it after reading “Social Network
Sites: Definitions, History, and Scholarship” it makes more sense.
That feature allowed users to “type themselves into being” (211).
Instant Messenger facilitates communication with user-chosen
identifier tags, which seemed to give the participants permission to
assert dominance over others in this virtual community. I learned the
social rules of AIM from sleepovers: statuses could be song lyrics or
symbols. They could be directed to someone without actually speaking
to them—which is often how statuses were used. AIM marked my
introduction to the use of the Internet to manage impressions, perform
within friend circles, and create an avatar of the self. Circulation
of ideas and opinions are often shared in mediated “settings” and I
now participate as a user of facebook and other platforms that have
similar defining features—but perhaps based on the jarring first
experiences as an observer of AIM, I still tread uneasily on this
well-worn social media terrain. Kayla
facebook and tumblr as Jessica and Clarke both mention. I recently
started using twitter (kayla8thecity is my twitter handle and so far
creating it was one of my highlights with the platform!) I bbm a few
close friends daily and text with others (who have iphones).
Emails are the medium I use with greatest frequency. I notice that the
types of emails I send have a large range of segmented audiences: I
use email to contact bosses and external companies that I will have
professional relations with, such as my moving company. I used it to
engage strictly on a personal level with: my Aunt Ellen who lives in
CA, my parents (which blurs the lines since I use email for “business”
matters i.e. itemizing NYU costs) and occasionally friends (if not,
facebook). 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 I
choose between sending emails or facebook based on these new forms of
control. Here the pervasiveness of the surveillance indicative of
social media is both apparent and hidden—when I post on a friend’s
facebook wall I seldom think about someone I haven’t seen/spoken to in
years surveying it. But a small part of me is conditioned to expect
that very possibility and is often willing to take the opportunity to
converse independent of temporal constraints.
I also use tumblr, because it feels like virtual collaging to reblog
images; I like as a source of private time and stress-relief. A lot
of my media use 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).
I find gmail the most useful of the social media I engage with, since
it affords me flexibility because it is asynchronous and does not
limit characters like texting. I like BBM on blackberry but find the
feature that allows the sender to view when the recipient has encoded
the message a double-edged sword. Rather than let the rhythm develop
organically this feature of BBM increases the cadence of a
conversation dramatically since the message becomes marked as read
—which depending on the topic of conversation can cause a totally
different sub-message to arrive.
A more broad reflection of a temporal nature brings me to my first
interaction with social media. It was indirect. I was a 7th grader who
had just moved and all my new school friends requested my AIM screen
name. AIM was forbidden in my home—probably because my parents had
what David Nye would call a “dystopian reaction” to the media (Baym,
28). I guess social media insighted fear for my parents, who didn’t
want me to be bullied (or worse be a bully) so I was mandated to role
of outside observer. Regardless of my feelings on the matter 7th
grade Kayla was in a situation that mimics the global issue of the
digital divide of those who have Internet and those who don’t have
access to it (Baym, 18).
Seeing printed records of conversations passed out on the bus I too
began to see AIM as an agent of doom (28). The manipulation of the
archived conversation was unique to instant messenger. If the same
conversation had occurred in-person it’s recording would be more
difficult to replicate or alter. I realized I was most comfortable in
my mandated observer role because I didn’t like what AIM was “doing”
to my friends –a typical technological determinism response. I saw AIM
as a casual agent that changed my friends in ways that they had little
power to resist. While social consequences of using AIM could be grim
with people trusting the ephemeral nature of the space, I now see how
the intent of the sender/receiver pair colored the medium, an
observation in line with the social constructivist position (24).
What struck me was how my friends appeared incapable of reflecting on
the very real possibly their conversations would be archived,
potentially edited and then distributed.
I think AIM is a great example of Baym’s “New Media, New Boundaries”
section since as I gained exposure to this form of communication I
tried to understand how it operated. I wondered why everyone had “xox”
proceeding and following their username, and why no one was using
their real names? Examining this it after reading “Social Network
Sites: Definitions, History, and Scholarship” it makes more sense.
That feature allowed users to “type themselves into being” (211).
Instant Messenger facilitates communication with user-chosen
identifier tags, which seemed to give the participants permission to
assert dominance over others in this virtual community. I learned the
social rules of AIM from sleepovers: statuses could be song lyrics or
symbols. They could be directed to someone without actually speaking
to them—which is often how statuses were used. AIM marked my
introduction to the use of the Internet to manage impressions, perform
within friend circles, and create an avatar of the self. Circulation
of ideas and opinions are often shared in mediated “settings” and I
now participate as a user of facebook and other platforms that have
similar defining features—but perhaps based on the jarring first
experiences as an observer of AIM, I still tread uneasily on this
well-worn social media terrain. Kayla