Responding to Sophie’s post (http://csmt11.posterous.com/my-problem-with-social-media )
Even though as I mentioned in my reflection post that this course has
helped me see the positive sides of social media (from both a personal
standpoint and a business one), I still think the best way to leverage
online platforms is to first underscore their pitfalls and potential
exploitative nature. So, as much as thing have changed for me they are
also staying the same, mainly because I believe costs of being
swallowed by the social media world is too high. I am advocating prosumers and netizens take a critical look at the
media giants, work to understand the self-serving aspects of their
agendas and how they (sometimes) execute those business objectives
against the best interest of their users. (For example facebook’s
opt-out system with privacy settings.) I am particularly interested in
the point that Sophie makes about facebook and gmail being
domesticated into her life and that there was initially resistance in
“willing to admit that there were [any] negative consequences for
checking Facebook 10 times a day, or constantly sitting on Gmail.” I
think that social media has shaped our society in some respects and
engendered surveillance as a normative reality. I also think that
there are some biological impulses at play that make it hard to
question these urges since the drive to understand one’s environment
has been a factor in self-preservation since the Paleolithic age. The fact that the monitoring of the “Other” in a public setting can be
indulged while the surveyor is cloaked in anonymity has interesting
psychological pulls that are hard to resist. Perhaps it feels like a
way to get ahead, stay involved, or understand the community we live
in— whatever the drive, it is a fact we’ve become used to studying and
researching our friends. Typical facebook train of thought is
scattered and surface level probing of activity within the network:
“Oh, friend X went to dinner here and is checked in, let me click the
link and see what type of restaurant it is, or friend Y got a job here
and it is a company liked by 330 mutual friends, let me google that…”
And the hours go by, with us mining for data about those who we
presumably have relationships with, relationship that fall under the
jurisdiction of friendship. Hmm? I can see why Sophie said that the
“internet can make us feel worse about ourselves.” Maybe we aren’t the society of narcissism (as Sophie and countless
scholars posit) but the society fearful if we aren’t making use of the
data streaming into our lives we are going to miss crucial information
about ourselves and others. Whatever the reason, monitoring becomes an
integral component of the online value chain for both the sites and
the people mining them. Sophie expresses relief that she will graduate in a month, and can
take a break from social media use, but I wonder if that break will
happen for her and for myself as a fellow Communication major. In
Andrejevic’s Surveillance and Alienation in the Online Economy he
posits that in the not too distant future, it may become the case that
social networking services become crucial productive resources for
some types of work (285). If we need access to such services to earn
our living, if our employers require the creation and maintenance of
these networks for business, how will we ever step away? I predict we
will not be taking a break but amercing ourselves, I don’t believe
that I am in deep trouble, because there are great companies that are
using the changing landscape for good. (link:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/about.php)
-@Kayla8thecity
helped me see the positive sides of social media (from both a personal
standpoint and a business one), I still think the best way to leverage
online platforms is to first underscore their pitfalls and potential
exploitative nature. So, as much as thing have changed for me they are
also staying the same, mainly because I believe costs of being
swallowed by the social media world is too high. I am advocating prosumers and netizens take a critical look at the
media giants, work to understand the self-serving aspects of their
agendas and how they (sometimes) execute those business objectives
against the best interest of their users. (For example facebook’s
opt-out system with privacy settings.) I am particularly interested in
the point that Sophie makes about facebook and gmail being
domesticated into her life and that there was initially resistance in
“willing to admit that there were [any] negative consequences for
checking Facebook 10 times a day, or constantly sitting on Gmail.” I
think that social media has shaped our society in some respects and
engendered surveillance as a normative reality. I also think that
there are some biological impulses at play that make it hard to
question these urges since the drive to understand one’s environment
has been a factor in self-preservation since the Paleolithic age. The fact that the monitoring of the “Other” in a public setting can be
indulged while the surveyor is cloaked in anonymity has interesting
psychological pulls that are hard to resist. Perhaps it feels like a
way to get ahead, stay involved, or understand the community we live
in— whatever the drive, it is a fact we’ve become used to studying and
researching our friends. Typical facebook train of thought is
scattered and surface level probing of activity within the network:
“Oh, friend X went to dinner here and is checked in, let me click the
link and see what type of restaurant it is, or friend Y got a job here
and it is a company liked by 330 mutual friends, let me google that…”
And the hours go by, with us mining for data about those who we
presumably have relationships with, relationship that fall under the
jurisdiction of friendship. Hmm? I can see why Sophie said that the
“internet can make us feel worse about ourselves.” Maybe we aren’t the society of narcissism (as Sophie and countless
scholars posit) but the society fearful if we aren’t making use of the
data streaming into our lives we are going to miss crucial information
about ourselves and others. Whatever the reason, monitoring becomes an
integral component of the online value chain for both the sites and
the people mining them. Sophie expresses relief that she will graduate in a month, and can
take a break from social media use, but I wonder if that break will
happen for her and for myself as a fellow Communication major. In
Andrejevic’s Surveillance and Alienation in the Online Economy he
posits that in the not too distant future, it may become the case that
social networking services become crucial productive resources for
some types of work (285). If we need access to such services to earn
our living, if our employers require the creation and maintenance of
these networks for business, how will we ever step away? I predict we
will not be taking a break but amercing ourselves, I don’t believe
that I am in deep trouble, because there are great companies that are
using the changing landscape for good. (link:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/about.php)
-@Kayla8thecity