In her conclusion to "Personal Connections in the Digital Age", Nancy Baym condenses many of her opinions on digital communications technology into a statement reflecting how, generally, we ought to perceive these technologies and their roles in our lives in her opinion. In a chapter entitled "The Myth of Cyberspace", she contends that seeing the online world as a completely separate space from our own in which we are free to create entirely new selves, networks and ways of communicating is flawed. No matter what we do or where we are, we inevitably carry with us our social background and practices, and even in supposedly free online spaces the constraints of gender, race, religion, nationality, and class identity usually remain (if sometimes altered from the form they take in the physical world). This same logic applies in explaining why the presence of new technologies does not irrevocably change us for the worse without our control. Briefly, Baym compares the effects of new mediated technologies to the effects of mass media in popular culture (advertising, television, etc.). When watching a tv show or advertisement, people rarely absorb the messages it conveys uncritically and unconsciously: rather, they interpret its messages through their own personal lens of beliefs and experiences. This is not to say that ads and tv do not posit messages or have an effect, but to say that if you remain conscious and savvy as to the objectives of the advertisers and producers, you can to some extent protect yourself from these effects. This is a phenomenon exacerbated in the nascent technology of the Internet, where people have more control than ever as to how they choose to use, interpret, and adapt the media they use. So far, it seems, we have used it to connect and communicate, the norms of which are still being worked out. Doubtless, the affordances of digital media effect our use of them, encouraging us in one way or another. But those media do not come out of nowhere, and the people who use them do not either. What we want and need from our technologies influences how they develop and how we use them, as much as the figures they privilege. In conclusion, Baym suggests that as a principle, separation of 'mediated' life and 'real' life is flawed. One is not in direct conflict with the other, and digitally mediated communication cannot be taken out of the context of the 'real' world in which it was developed and continues to exist.
This is, in essence, the crux of the matter, and it is a point I am personally very grateful for. Almost all discussion as to the role of the Internet and new communication technologies I have seen continues to refer to it as a separate space, independent from daily reality. Baym offers an alternative viewpoint none too early, a complete refiguring of this discourse that takes into account the reality that nothing ever occurs out of context. The illusion of a 'cyperspace', perpetuated by Internet dwellers and Sherry Turkle alike, obscures this reality and turns discussion of the Internet into a fruitless, endless pursuit when in reality, history shows us that it will soon be as domesticated a technology as writing. I do not think that there is no point to discussing the Internet or its role, and I do not believe it has nothing special to offer us. I have seen and experienced too much evidence to the contrary to believe that. But I do believe, or at least hope, that if more people came to think of the Internet as being a technology we all experience and adapt to in our own way, within a context where both the 'irl' and 'online' worlds are equally real, we might have a more productive discourse and be more aware of the technology's effects, and what we can do to adapt with them. As we better understand the Internet, we can better make use of it, and our experiences can be productive and enjoyable, rather than resentful or harmful. In point of fact, as far as I'm concerned, the Internet is too powerful for us not to try to grapple with it in this way, for it is when we refuse to do so that both the darker aspects of online culture (flaming, trolling, illegal torrenting, etc.) and the more dangerous responses to it (SOPA, PIPA) are allowed to occur. Perhaps, if we followed Baym's advice, we could find a constructive solution to these problems, and as new problems invariably develop, we could find a way to handle those too.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Ramirez et al.: Info seeking strategies online
It has been a while since I tried deliberately to find out information about someone through almost exclusively online channels. I have been known to check out my old friends' new friends, girlfriends, and boyfriends on Facebook, from time to time, but it's usually only a cursory glance on account of the fact that these are not people I'm planning to pursue a relationship with, in the long-term. I look to see, to the extent that I can via a cursory glance, that they look like a decent human being, and then I stop: I trust my friends' judgement, and it's not like there's much I can do about it anyway when it's not my relationship. This reading came at a very good time for me, then, as I have just returned from a convention in Seattle where I met at least 50 new people, all of them from the same region and same fan community as myself, and most of whom I knew I would not see again in person for at least a year. Despite that, with the premise established that we were all gathered together over a mutual passion, and with a vested interest in being friendly with each other, a few of the new relationships I formed clearly held promise for lasting longer than one three-day weekend.
Some of these were relationships I plan to keep up and develop further in-person: certain of the folks I met hail from Portland and, as it turns out, meet weekly on Sundays in events I plan to attend as frequently as possible in the future now that I know they occur. There is something very special about the experience of meeting up with a fan community that you know and love online in-person, and it goes without saying to me that if I can extend that experience beyond one weekend, I will. The implications of that are worth looking at, but they're not all that relevant to a discussion of online information seeking... since I know I will be seeing them in person again soon, and since the meet-ups are in a safe public space (and I have already met them briefly in person, and they seem like normal people) I am not putting a lot of effort into finding information about them online first. But eliminating that group still leaves several folks who are residents of the general Pacific Northwest whom I met and whose company I enjoyed, but whom I am unlikely to see in person again soon. Given this circumstance, the next best thing I can do, it would seem, is to maintain the relationship online: first, by finding information about them.
It has only been two or three days since convention ended, but so far, my behavior has been consistent with Ramirez's predictions. Both now and in the past, when I join a new community, I tend to lurk a little bit and see what things are like before I attempt to join in or reply much. However, in this case, my goal is not to join an established forum community, it is to form relationships over a platform (tumblr) that is much more biased towards one-to-one communication, albiet in a public arena. It is with the goal of showing some who I met that I'm interested in actually continuing interaction that I choose interactive strategies to communicate with them: reblogging their posts, sending them asks, etc. Others who I met, who I didn't talk to as much but whom I admired greatly from my limited observation of them, I choose more passive strategies to observe (simply following them on tumblr or liking their fan page on Facebook) because my goal is not necessarily to be their friend so much as it is to keep up with what they are doing in the fan community under the assurance that I will probably enjoy it, since I admired/enjoyed what I saw of them at the convention so much. Of course, none of these relationships have existed for more than five days at this point, so it's not as if I'm terribly attached to any of them, and if I receive information that I assess as indicating that the person or persons in question are not as likable to me as they appeared to be after a limited interaction, it would be easy, given the brief amount of time since I met them and the limited channels through which we have interacted, to break off the relationship. But in the mean time, the background information I have (I know we share an interest, I know there's a possibility of us seeing each other again, and I know we already use the same online channel with some frequency since I have seen them post many times each day on tumblr), it seems easily worth it to continue to interact with them and observe them online.
Some of these were relationships I plan to keep up and develop further in-person: certain of the folks I met hail from Portland and, as it turns out, meet weekly on Sundays in events I plan to attend as frequently as possible in the future now that I know they occur. There is something very special about the experience of meeting up with a fan community that you know and love online in-person, and it goes without saying to me that if I can extend that experience beyond one weekend, I will. The implications of that are worth looking at, but they're not all that relevant to a discussion of online information seeking... since I know I will be seeing them in person again soon, and since the meet-ups are in a safe public space (and I have already met them briefly in person, and they seem like normal people) I am not putting a lot of effort into finding information about them online first. But eliminating that group still leaves several folks who are residents of the general Pacific Northwest whom I met and whose company I enjoyed, but whom I am unlikely to see in person again soon. Given this circumstance, the next best thing I can do, it would seem, is to maintain the relationship online: first, by finding information about them.
It has only been two or three days since convention ended, but so far, my behavior has been consistent with Ramirez's predictions. Both now and in the past, when I join a new community, I tend to lurk a little bit and see what things are like before I attempt to join in or reply much. However, in this case, my goal is not to join an established forum community, it is to form relationships over a platform (tumblr) that is much more biased towards one-to-one communication, albiet in a public arena. It is with the goal of showing some who I met that I'm interested in actually continuing interaction that I choose interactive strategies to communicate with them: reblogging their posts, sending them asks, etc. Others who I met, who I didn't talk to as much but whom I admired greatly from my limited observation of them, I choose more passive strategies to observe (simply following them on tumblr or liking their fan page on Facebook) because my goal is not necessarily to be their friend so much as it is to keep up with what they are doing in the fan community under the assurance that I will probably enjoy it, since I admired/enjoyed what I saw of them at the convention so much. Of course, none of these relationships have existed for more than five days at this point, so it's not as if I'm terribly attached to any of them, and if I receive information that I assess as indicating that the person or persons in question are not as likable to me as they appeared to be after a limited interaction, it would be easy, given the brief amount of time since I met them and the limited channels through which we have interacted, to break off the relationship. But in the mean time, the background information I have (I know we share an interest, I know there's a possibility of us seeing each other again, and I know we already use the same online channel with some frequency since I have seen them post many times each day on tumblr), it seems easily worth it to continue to interact with them and observe them online.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Baym 6 and Walther
When considering electronically mediated relationships, it is essential to realize that not all relationships can be considered on the same terms. Whether a communication is conducted FtF or via media is probably considerably less important to the quality of that interaction than what the conversation partners' relationship is: whether it is close or distant, professional or friendly, or romantic. What's more, although 'online' and 'offline' remain mutually exclusive categories when considering a given interaction, Baym suggests that in ongoing relationships, as technology use saturates our culture, it is increasingly rare that every interaction will fit into only one of these categories. Whether a relationship is begun online or offline, if it becomes close, communication channels between partners will likely expand to include a wider variety of mediated channels and sometimes face-to-face interactions as well. It is no longer unusual among certain populations to interact with people who you may see every day via EMC in the hours when you don't see them. I for one do a lot of emailing back-and-forth with my group mates and fellow members of student groups and clubs even when I know their dorm and room number and could easily talk to them in person if I wanted. Moreso, the relationships I maintain primarily through EMC started out as primarily FtF relationships for which that kind of interaction is no longer viable on a regular basis. This seems to me to be a natural state of being for most college students, and one I think most of my peers recognize. It surprised me however to see in both Baym and Walther a mention of phone conversations as a common activity amongst college students in maintaining their relationships. This data seems to fly in the face of Turkle's suggestion that young people don't know how to talk on the phone any more, and interact with each other largely through texting. It also doesn't match up that neatly with my personal experience. For me, which media I privilege for interaction with someone is very individual to who that someone is. I'm comfortable having long phone conversations with my girlfriend, but with many of my close high school friends I prefer Skype (as close an experience to FtF that I can get while they're still several miles away from me) or email (although I don't worry in the least about presenting the right version of myself to these friends, the lower time commitment comes in incredibly handy when a group of 8 college students in multiple time zones try to update one another on life events). Comfort level of the individuals involved with technology and each other remains an important issue to consider when choosing what channel(s) of communication to use, in addition to the reasons listed by Walther (asynchrony, idealized perception & idealized presentation, etc). EMC is widespread, but as Baym points out, it is still not domesticated, and how successfully we use it depends on how accepted our norms for use become, as described by Baym in her final section.
One point which Baym touched on briefly, but I would have liked to see more information on, is the idea of using the computer together, as a form of social interaction/the creation of social capital. Baym writes, "Though I must admit that in my own home there are times when family computer use has detracted from family together time, I also value the hours of brotherly bonding my sons have spent side by side... in front of the screen playing a game or showing one another their newest cool find." What intrigued me here was that Baym made a distinction between 'family together time' and 'family computer use': isn't using the computer together as family a form of the former as well as the latter? When I first bought a game system, I never played it or turned it on at all without either my father or my sister present. Some of my fondest memories of childhood with my sister involve the both of us plain PC games like Freddie the Fish side by side, working together. Even today, I prefer to play games with a partner: even if I'm the only one controlling the gameplay, having my sister or a friend sit on the couch with me and watch (and occasionally holler suggestions) is more comfortable and fun. I suppose it depends on your definition of 'togetherness' time, but I certainly value the hours I spend cuddled up with a friend watching Supernatural on my computer as much as I would the hours I might spend watching it on a television. It's different, and certainly less powerful, than having a meaningful conversation with her, but it is still quality time spent together which to me constitutes relationship bonding: even if very little interaction between the two of us is actually taking place.
One point which Baym touched on briefly, but I would have liked to see more information on, is the idea of using the computer together, as a form of social interaction/the creation of social capital. Baym writes, "Though I must admit that in my own home there are times when family computer use has detracted from family together time, I also value the hours of brotherly bonding my sons have spent side by side... in front of the screen playing a game or showing one another their newest cool find." What intrigued me here was that Baym made a distinction between 'family together time' and 'family computer use': isn't using the computer together as family a form of the former as well as the latter? When I first bought a game system, I never played it or turned it on at all without either my father or my sister present. Some of my fondest memories of childhood with my sister involve the both of us plain PC games like Freddie the Fish side by side, working together. Even today, I prefer to play games with a partner: even if I'm the only one controlling the gameplay, having my sister or a friend sit on the couch with me and watch (and occasionally holler suggestions) is more comfortable and fun. I suppose it depends on your definition of 'togetherness' time, but I certainly value the hours I spend cuddled up with a friend watching Supernatural on my computer as much as I would the hours I might spend watching it on a television. It's different, and certainly less powerful, than having a meaningful conversation with her, but it is still quality time spent together which to me constitutes relationship bonding: even if very little interaction between the two of us is actually taking place.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Baxter & Brainwaith 23 and Boyd & Hargiatti
When Facebook first made profiles public, I remember that I saw the default option was to go along with it and that I deliberately changed it. I didn't like the idea of being found by just whoever under my real name - I'd hung out in a lot of other locales where just about anyone could see my profile, but those profiles were anonymous, not connected to the real me outside giving out my first name and general location. (I challenge you to track me down with the keywords 'Hanna' and 'Pacific Northwest'.) I have never put my phone number on Facebook, or my address. Since then, I hadn't thought much about what other users were seeing, but what companies and apps were seeing was definitely on my mind, at least for the last year or so. After reading Boyd & Hargiatti, I was compelled to go on Facebook and check my settings out to see how secure they were. The process of privatizing my information was just as complex as Boyd, Hargiatti, and Nancy Baym complained, and I was surprised to see that somehow much of my info had ended up accessible to 'friends of friends' instead of just 'friends,' which was what I thought I'd initially specified. I was also surprised to see my email listed as accessible to friends. The only things 'public' were my likes (in music, TV, etc.) It took a little less than an hour to make sure that all of this information (likes, profile, etc.) was accessible only to friends, listing my email as accessible only to myself (I have no idea what the point of this feature is, but it worked for me removing it from others' view since I couldn't figure out how to delete it entirely), and cleaning up my friends list to only people whose names I could actually recognize at first glance (something I'd been meaning to do for a while, although there were not many people in this category since it has been years since I friended anyone who asked and was associated with my high school). Finally, I confronted apps. In high school, I used Facebook to kill time a lot more than I do now, leaving me with about 140 mostly unused applications that could access my information. Much to my relief, I found a button allowing me to 'delete all apps' instantaneously, and did so. This was when I was greeted with a surprise: a message asking if I wanted to opt out entirely of apps having access to my info. I quickly did so, but what surprised me about it was that the message also assured me that, even if I opted out of giving apps my data, I could actually continue to use them, if I was okay with the fact that games, etc. couldn't remember me or save my information. What struck me about this is that previous to then, any time I clicked a new app, I was completely unable to proceed to it until I had given it access to all of my private information. So yes, Facebook has the resources to make one's profile pretty completely private... but why is it that I had to find out about how from a source that was not Facebook and take an entire hour to do it? And why do I still not feel like my information is completely secure... and since I don't, why don't I just delete my Facebook?
The short answer is "because my sister asked me not to." And now that I've gone over my settings with a fine-tooth comb, the idea of staying on doesn't bug me. But the idea of her staying on without having done so bothers me a lot... she is a constant Facebooker, who recently told me she takes pride in the fact that the last several posts on my wall are from her. I know she uses the site intelligently, more or less... she doesn't put anything on Facebook that she doesn't want her peers as a general group to see, and when she has more private information to convey, she chooses a different channel (email, Skype, phone) to convey it. On the blog she is sharing with her best friend to tell stories of their adventures in London with others, she is even more careful. The blog is meant for their mutual friends, myself included, but it's accessible to anyone with a Blogger account. Despite claims that youth don't care about privacy, the Boyd & Hargiatti study shows they do, and I think that's true. But it's easy to assume, when you're told, that just pressing a button to change your privacy settings to 'custom' takes care of it. You've changed something that is related to your privacy that does, in fact, make your profile more private... but it might not do everything you want or expect it to, and it might give you a false sense of security. Which is worrisome. Information disclosure as described in Baxter & Brainwaithe is a pretty deliberate thing, especially in sensitive matters. You don't tell everything to everyone, and the act of telling is very deliberate... one chooses how to tell secrets, and to whom, very carefully. You don't want people to overhear, and depending on your skill with and understanding of technology, people well may when you're disclosing information on Facebook. Sure, you can use Facebook carefully, and many people do, but some users are ignorant. And when it takes me at least an hour to fix my privacy settings and I'm one of the people who thinks about this, and has been thinking about this for at least a couple years, it is not those users' fault.
The short answer is "because my sister asked me not to." And now that I've gone over my settings with a fine-tooth comb, the idea of staying on doesn't bug me. But the idea of her staying on without having done so bothers me a lot... she is a constant Facebooker, who recently told me she takes pride in the fact that the last several posts on my wall are from her. I know she uses the site intelligently, more or less... she doesn't put anything on Facebook that she doesn't want her peers as a general group to see, and when she has more private information to convey, she chooses a different channel (email, Skype, phone) to convey it. On the blog she is sharing with her best friend to tell stories of their adventures in London with others, she is even more careful. The blog is meant for their mutual friends, myself included, but it's accessible to anyone with a Blogger account. Despite claims that youth don't care about privacy, the Boyd & Hargiatti study shows they do, and I think that's true. But it's easy to assume, when you're told, that just pressing a button to change your privacy settings to 'custom' takes care of it. You've changed something that is related to your privacy that does, in fact, make your profile more private... but it might not do everything you want or expect it to, and it might give you a false sense of security. Which is worrisome. Information disclosure as described in Baxter & Brainwaithe is a pretty deliberate thing, especially in sensitive matters. You don't tell everything to everyone, and the act of telling is very deliberate... one chooses how to tell secrets, and to whom, very carefully. You don't want people to overhear, and depending on your skill with and understanding of technology, people well may when you're disclosing information on Facebook. Sure, you can use Facebook carefully, and many people do, but some users are ignorant. And when it takes me at least an hour to fix my privacy settings and I'm one of the people who thinks about this, and has been thinking about this for at least a couple years, it is not those users' fault.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
"Who Am We" by Sherry Turkle and "Identity Warranting" by Walther and Parks
Being asked to look at the profile or homepage of someone I know, and seeing how close or far it was from reality, the first person I thought of was my sister. First of all, I know her possibly better than I know anyone else, so I can most easily identify the difference between her online persona and how she behaves when she's with me face-to-face. Second of all, she's a pretty big Facebook user - she's the one who asked me not to delete my Facebook profile when I was considering quitting the site. When I look online at her profile, (connected to a real-life identity that can be corroborated and 'warranted' by social structures of people we both know in person), the person I see seems 'real' to me just as she does in person. There's pictures of her smiling, the occasional bit of dry wit and sarcasm, posts from her friends and our mutual friends, and an overall cheerful tone very reminiscent of the public persona that she projects. Her interests and political values are listed, and only her real family members are listed as family. What is lacking is what I know she doesn't project publicly - parts of herself, personality characteristics, that only come out when she's talking with just people she's very close to, whom she trusts. My sister on Facebook is an idealized version of my sister face-to-face, but it's not that far off. Comparing her profile-'irl' differences to those of someone I know less well, it's hard to see, to some extent, which version is more real, because I don't know the 'real' them.
Identities are complex, offline or online, but online, that complexity becomes much more salient. Turkle's description of 'windows', where we appear as different people in different mediums, makes sense to me, although I haven't usually presented massively differently across mediums. The exception to this rule has been my experience in play-by-post roleplaying, which is precisely why her description of MUD players was fascinating to me. The idea of playing the role of a woman sometimes, a man sometimes, and a magical rabbit at others is nothing new to me - I've done something akin to that myself. What's completely new to me is the idea that any of these should be connected to each other in any way, or more importantly, to the person who spawned them. A cursory look at the document on my computer listing the full names, ages, and other descriptive information of my original characters reveals 57 names - many of them inactive (I haven't written or played with them in a while), some of them not. But this world is radically different from that of MUDs. The online roleplaying I have done is a game, a story. The online roleplaying of MUD players was explicitly connected to their lives, no matter how far fetched their personas. Being someone who just plays for fun, this is what throws me - why make the connection?
As time has passed, it seems, MUDs have lost popularity, and when you play an obviously fantastical role in an obviously fantastical situation online, that role separates itself from yourself 'irl'. Most people online present as themselves, certainly in the most popular online mediums (twitter, Facebook, tumblr, YouTube, etc.). Even Joel from 'Alone Together', when he presents as a little pink elephant in Second Life, imbues Rashi with his own personality and makes it clear that he takes his Second Life relationships seriously, allowing him to use this fantastical persona to work through his real conflicts. In "Who am I," Turkle says that "... some are tempted to think of life in cyberspace as insignificant, as escape or meaningless diversion. It is not. Our experiences there are serious play. We belittle them at our risk." On this, I agree, and I think this may have been what made MUDs as fragmented and confusing as they seem to have been for many. Fantasy can be mean of two things: either it's perceived as play, existing just for fun, or as a way to fulfill genuine desires, hopes, and deviances of the player in a safe space. When many people play together in a fantasy without defining for which purpose they have come, it's harder to form a community, or to use online worlds to work through whatever you are trying to work through, because without knowing how seriously your partners/co-players take the fantasy, it's more difficult to know whether they can be trusted.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
"Where everybody knows your (screen) name", "Is there a 'space' in cyberspace?", and "Small town gossip goes online"
One of the reasons for my great interest in this class is my personal experience with forums and EMC (an experience that many of my 'irl' friends share). I haven't been everywhere there is to be online, and I'm certainly not an expert, but I feel I've spent sufficient time in various online haunts to have a basic feeling of what a typical online environment feels like (to whatever extent a 'typical' online environment exists, which is extremely debatable). Only problem is, it's a feeling, not a thought, and my attempts to put it into words in blog entries, response papers, and Moodle posts have fallen consistently short. It is a thought Steinkuhler and Williams' article, based on post-positivist research, gets at more accurately and quickly than I would ever be capable of.
Let me preclude this by saying: I don't play MMORPGs. I've thought about joining one, but my pocketbook has voiced continuous and loud objections to the matter, so these games remain un-downloaded. I like video games, but I'm very much a casual gamer, into specific series (mostly big-name action-adventure games) and not much else, and I definitely don't play online, whether in a large-scale fantasy MMORPG like World of Warcraft or on an FPS (first person shooter) via XBox Live. This being stated, the description given by Steinkuhler and Williams of MMORPGs as a type of 'third space', a new non-physical gathering place to form community, where social disparities are leveled, is almost exactly in line with my experience with communities in other online communication channels. The presence of 'regulars' alongside new members, the overall playful tone of conversation, the feeling of a 'home away from home' online, and the very common formation of bridging social capital with the occasional addition of bonding social capital (especially in long-term, 'committed' online relationships) are all phenomena that sound familiar to me. In the play-by-post roleplaying forums where I used to hang out, the affordances and limitations of the site(s) were very different from those present in an MMO. But the experience of those forums as a 'third space' is a point of definite commonality. In particular, Gaia online (a site for teens which used to be the primary place in which I would role-play) allows for the creation of sub-forums for people with specific interests to come together and hang out, creating social capital with more of a capacity for bonding (considering the common interest which brought them together to the forum in the first place). I bring this up because these sub-forums were actually called guilds, explicitly invoking the long-term groups that MMO players often bond into. This is far from to say that most of the communication and social capital formed in these groups was bonding - most of us knew each other well enough to know something about each others' (very disparate) lives, to have familiarity with what nicknames based on our usernames we preferred to go by online, and to be basically concerned about one another's well being: when someone was feeling down we would do our best to cheer them up - but not well enough to offer genuine, close comfort when the chips were down. Certain of us did have close friendships with each other, both exclusively online and not, but this was not the norm, although many of my fellow guild mates chose to meet in person or exchange contact info including mailing addresses, personal email, and phone. Yet this never stopped me from feeling these forums were a community, a home away from home, where I could know people and be known without concern for the fact that they were almost all older than I, where I could show the best side of myself and be as witty as I wanted by thinking before I clicked 'publish post.' It is this phenomenon, I think, that many folks writing about EMC without experiencing it fail to acknowledge. The fact that I would have turned to my 'irl' friends rather than my guild mates in a crisis does not mean that my guild mates were not important to me, nor that I was not important to them. In fact, judging by the article about small-town gossip, our tendency towards bridging capital and lack of geographic proximity may have been vital to our function as a community at all! At home, 'irl' connections and bonding social capital are vital to our lives, but bridging social capital has its place as well, and with the decline of the brick-and-mortar third space, the emergence of the online one is an important step to rebuilding these connections in our lives.
There is one other point from the small-town gossip article that struck me: the story of the woman from Indiana who had killed herself and her three children when her divorce was being discussed in a public forum for the whole town to see. Hours earlier, she had posted a comment on that selfsame forum that "Now it's time to take the pain away." This struck me because, had this woman been posting in an online community she felt a part of (whether an MMO, a forum, or some other anonymous online communication channel), this message would have sent out warning flags straight off! Even if she had posted it in a new thread on an open public forum where no one really knew her at all, rather than on a board where she had bridging social capital with some of the other members there, I am almost certain that this response would have merited some action on the part of other observers. The more private a message like this, the more unlikely that it will receive attention, as far as my awareness of these online dramas goes. If you send a private message, or an ask, or make your blog private, or don't tag your post with anything, no one will see, and no one will help. But I have seen time and time again complete and total strangers on the Internet banding together to help another complete and total stranger when the latter individual has posted a message with even the vaguest threat of suicide. Calls go out to see if anyone know the individual in question in person, calls go out to see if someone knows their address and can call 911, and hundreds or thousands of responses go out - however brief - begging the individual to think things through, trying to offer comfort, offering helpline numbers, offering anything that they think might help. Users may be anonymous, with no definitive ties or responsibilities to each other, but they are still human, and most humans, seeing someone in desperate pain in need of help, will try and alleviate that pain whether or not they get something in return. It's a trend that's easier than ever when all it takes is a two-minute post, and although one of these might mean next to nothing, sometimes, hundreds upon thousands of them do, in fact, make a very important difference.
P.S. I attempted to access the annotated version of the Steinkuhler and Williams article, but neither highlighting nor notes showed up! I am using Safari, which sometimes doesn't work like other browsers do - could this be contributing or does anyone know another solution I could seek? (I don't have a problem changing browsers - I have been thinking I ought to switch to Firefox or Google Chrome for a while now.)
Let me preclude this by saying: I don't play MMORPGs. I've thought about joining one, but my pocketbook has voiced continuous and loud objections to the matter, so these games remain un-downloaded. I like video games, but I'm very much a casual gamer, into specific series (mostly big-name action-adventure games) and not much else, and I definitely don't play online, whether in a large-scale fantasy MMORPG like World of Warcraft or on an FPS (first person shooter) via XBox Live. This being stated, the description given by Steinkuhler and Williams of MMORPGs as a type of 'third space', a new non-physical gathering place to form community, where social disparities are leveled, is almost exactly in line with my experience with communities in other online communication channels. The presence of 'regulars' alongside new members, the overall playful tone of conversation, the feeling of a 'home away from home' online, and the very common formation of bridging social capital with the occasional addition of bonding social capital (especially in long-term, 'committed' online relationships) are all phenomena that sound familiar to me. In the play-by-post roleplaying forums where I used to hang out, the affordances and limitations of the site(s) were very different from those present in an MMO. But the experience of those forums as a 'third space' is a point of definite commonality. In particular, Gaia online (a site for teens which used to be the primary place in which I would role-play) allows for the creation of sub-forums for people with specific interests to come together and hang out, creating social capital with more of a capacity for bonding (considering the common interest which brought them together to the forum in the first place). I bring this up because these sub-forums were actually called guilds, explicitly invoking the long-term groups that MMO players often bond into. This is far from to say that most of the communication and social capital formed in these groups was bonding - most of us knew each other well enough to know something about each others' (very disparate) lives, to have familiarity with what nicknames based on our usernames we preferred to go by online, and to be basically concerned about one another's well being: when someone was feeling down we would do our best to cheer them up - but not well enough to offer genuine, close comfort when the chips were down. Certain of us did have close friendships with each other, both exclusively online and not, but this was not the norm, although many of my fellow guild mates chose to meet in person or exchange contact info including mailing addresses, personal email, and phone. Yet this never stopped me from feeling these forums were a community, a home away from home, where I could know people and be known without concern for the fact that they were almost all older than I, where I could show the best side of myself and be as witty as I wanted by thinking before I clicked 'publish post.' It is this phenomenon, I think, that many folks writing about EMC without experiencing it fail to acknowledge. The fact that I would have turned to my 'irl' friends rather than my guild mates in a crisis does not mean that my guild mates were not important to me, nor that I was not important to them. In fact, judging by the article about small-town gossip, our tendency towards bridging capital and lack of geographic proximity may have been vital to our function as a community at all! At home, 'irl' connections and bonding social capital are vital to our lives, but bridging social capital has its place as well, and with the decline of the brick-and-mortar third space, the emergence of the online one is an important step to rebuilding these connections in our lives.
There is one other point from the small-town gossip article that struck me: the story of the woman from Indiana who had killed herself and her three children when her divorce was being discussed in a public forum for the whole town to see. Hours earlier, she had posted a comment on that selfsame forum that "Now it's time to take the pain away." This struck me because, had this woman been posting in an online community she felt a part of (whether an MMO, a forum, or some other anonymous online communication channel), this message would have sent out warning flags straight off! Even if she had posted it in a new thread on an open public forum where no one really knew her at all, rather than on a board where she had bridging social capital with some of the other members there, I am almost certain that this response would have merited some action on the part of other observers. The more private a message like this, the more unlikely that it will receive attention, as far as my awareness of these online dramas goes. If you send a private message, or an ask, or make your blog private, or don't tag your post with anything, no one will see, and no one will help. But I have seen time and time again complete and total strangers on the Internet banding together to help another complete and total stranger when the latter individual has posted a message with even the vaguest threat of suicide. Calls go out to see if anyone know the individual in question in person, calls go out to see if someone knows their address and can call 911, and hundreds or thousands of responses go out - however brief - begging the individual to think things through, trying to offer comfort, offering helpline numbers, offering anything that they think might help. Users may be anonymous, with no definitive ties or responsibilities to each other, but they are still human, and most humans, seeing someone in desperate pain in need of help, will try and alleviate that pain whether or not they get something in return. It's a trend that's easier than ever when all it takes is a two-minute post, and although one of these might mean next to nothing, sometimes, hundreds upon thousands of them do, in fact, make a very important difference.
P.S. I attempted to access the annotated version of the Steinkuhler and Williams article, but neither highlighting nor notes showed up! I am using Safari, which sometimes doesn't work like other browsers do - could this be contributing or does anyone know another solution I could seek? (I don't have a problem changing browsers - I have been thinking I ought to switch to Firefox or Google Chrome for a while now.)
Monday, February 13, 2012
Baym 4, Williams, and PEW report
Although I have almost always found myself interested in readings for this class, this week I found myself particularly interested, because of the subject matter (online communities) at hand. It has been a while since I was heavily involved in 'net communities, but in middle and high school, as I mentioned last week, I did a lot of posting in online play-by-post roleplaying forums. Although I no longer participate, the experience was never less than pleasant for me, and had a genuine effect on my personality which lasts to this day. I connected with people of many different ethnic, economic, gender, and regional backgrounds over a common interest - but it's also my concern, based on what I've seen online in other places, that interaction doesn't always work like that, that by forming online communities we can indeed gravitate towards people whose opinions we like and agree with and phase out all the rest. This trend, to me, represents something very dangerous. I'm steadfast in my opinions myself, but I am always interested in hearing how others feel, if only because by understanding their viewpoints, I think I can perhaps understand the people themselves better. This is not always successful, or possible - but it's a worthwhile goal just the same. Baym doesn't seem to have very many answers to offer on this subject, nor do Williams or the PEW report, other than to say that those who use the 'net are more likely to be politically involved (regardless of what side of the aisle they stand on). For my part, it's my instinct that the capacity to isolate yourself from different viewpoints is increased by the Internet, but it's an instinct that is present even without the medium there - my father barely uses the Internet/tech, but still tends to either isolate himself from hearing non-liberal opinions or ignore them when he hears them entirely. (It was because of this that I was so surprised to see in the PEW report that MySpace users tend to be more open to others' points of view. I never used MySpace, and I don't know what the specific customs of that online space are that might lead to that trend, but I'd be very curious to learn what they are.)
Social customs in online spaces are another thing that holds serious interest to me. I move between sites and fan communities online a lot - that's practically everything I do online really. And almost every time I find and start hanging out on a new site, I find myself going to urbandictionary.com to decode a term that I find there over and over again and do not recognize. Some of these memes (lolcats being the most prominent example) transcend sites and places on the Internet and can be recognized by almost any one who spends enough time online. But especially in fan communities, some cannot be understood by any one who is not already involved in the fan community (or one who follows the media series in question). I have found myself accidentally referencing these memes and quotes, from various sources, in company that I consciously know won't understand them - but subconsciously I'm so used to it that I don't think to stop myself! It's usually the more humorous trends that take off, but generally I'm not sure what makes one small fan-generated joke become more popular than others to a point where it becomes large-scale. I can say that for my own part, the reason I partake in these customs is not only social acceptance - it's that having an 'in-joke' increases by a large amount the feeling of community invoked when I see someone else knowing and being into something that I am also into. (Especially 'irl', it's always a pleasant surprise when I realize someone I know is into a fandom that I normally only interact with members of online.)
The topic I was least familiar with was bridging social capital vs. bonding social capital, this being obviously an academic theory rather than a phenomenon one who uses the 'net might encounter. The theory seems to make sense to me, based on the social bonds I have made on and offline. However it seems to me likely that these categories aren't entirely exclusive, or at least that bonds/social capital can move from bridging to bonding or vice-versa in certain circumstances. Obviously the bond would change, and in going from bridging to bonding capital the number of people in the community would decrease, but I've definitely seen instances of people who know each other in a bridging capacity coming to be close in a tighter-knit bonding capacity as time goes on. As far as which kind is more likely to occur online, I'd generally agree that bridging social capital is more likely to occur - but I also think it depends on the relative 'size' of the online space in which the social capital is being created/exchanged. In forums, I've found, people tend to make bonding capital more often, because most forum communities have a smaller quantity of members. Very popular social networking sites or general-purpose sites like Youtube or Facebook however are probably more likely to facilitate creation and exchange of bridging social capital, since there are many more members to these sites, and the method in which they exchange messages is less centralized between-all-users (in other words, on a forum, it's more likely that almost all the forum members see the post, whereas on a larger-scale website most users will not see any individual post).
Social customs in online spaces are another thing that holds serious interest to me. I move between sites and fan communities online a lot - that's practically everything I do online really. And almost every time I find and start hanging out on a new site, I find myself going to urbandictionary.com to decode a term that I find there over and over again and do not recognize. Some of these memes (lolcats being the most prominent example) transcend sites and places on the Internet and can be recognized by almost any one who spends enough time online. But especially in fan communities, some cannot be understood by any one who is not already involved in the fan community (or one who follows the media series in question). I have found myself accidentally referencing these memes and quotes, from various sources, in company that I consciously know won't understand them - but subconsciously I'm so used to it that I don't think to stop myself! It's usually the more humorous trends that take off, but generally I'm not sure what makes one small fan-generated joke become more popular than others to a point where it becomes large-scale. I can say that for my own part, the reason I partake in these customs is not only social acceptance - it's that having an 'in-joke' increases by a large amount the feeling of community invoked when I see someone else knowing and being into something that I am also into. (Especially 'irl', it's always a pleasant surprise when I realize someone I know is into a fandom that I normally only interact with members of online.)
The topic I was least familiar with was bridging social capital vs. bonding social capital, this being obviously an academic theory rather than a phenomenon one who uses the 'net might encounter. The theory seems to make sense to me, based on the social bonds I have made on and offline. However it seems to me likely that these categories aren't entirely exclusive, or at least that bonds/social capital can move from bridging to bonding or vice-versa in certain circumstances. Obviously the bond would change, and in going from bridging to bonding capital the number of people in the community would decrease, but I've definitely seen instances of people who know each other in a bridging capacity coming to be close in a tighter-knit bonding capacity as time goes on. As far as which kind is more likely to occur online, I'd generally agree that bridging social capital is more likely to occur - but I also think it depends on the relative 'size' of the online space in which the social capital is being created/exchanged. In forums, I've found, people tend to make bonding capital more often, because most forum communities have a smaller quantity of members. Very popular social networking sites or general-purpose sites like Youtube or Facebook however are probably more likely to facilitate creation and exchange of bridging social capital, since there are many more members to these sites, and the method in which they exchange messages is less centralized between-all-users (in other words, on a forum, it's more likely that almost all the forum members see the post, whereas on a larger-scale website most users will not see any individual post).
Political cartoon - Facebook friends
Before I blog about Wednesday's reading, I thought I'd put this up - a political cartoon I saw get linked to on (funnily enough) Facebook. Reminded me of some of what we've read in Turkle and Baym. I don't really find it funny myself, but it's definitely relevant to the subject!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Baym Ch. 3 and Baxter & Braithwaite Ch. 29
Chapter three of Baym's book, on communication in digital spaces, and chapter 29 of Baxter & Braithwaite, on Social Information Processing Theory, are the first readings of this class that I have immediately and unquestioningly found myself agreeing with, almost completely. I am a long time 'netizen', in the words of some digital communication scholars. I first started exploring the Internet when I was about 9 or 10, back in elementary school. Over time, my patterns of use, and amount of use, have waxed and waned depending on a variety of independent factors. At this point, I am less engrossed in exclusively-online social situations than I have been before, but I still spend a lot more time on the internet than most of my peers. The exact number of hours per day (at least ones that are not devoted to online schoolwork) is hard to determine and varies from day to day, but usually during school it's around 2-3 hours per day on weekdays, about 5 on weekends, and a truly incredible amount during vacations when I have no work - sometimes as many as 8 or 10. I read webcomics, I watch media, I read blogs, I post on Facebook, I read and look at fan works (both art and fiction) for the media I'm interested in, and many more things I am not quite sure how to describe. What I don't do very often right now is post on online forums, but I used to, mostly creative play-by-post role playing (a type of communal story-creating where each person controls one character and their interactions drive the plot). But I used to, and it was usually with people I didn't know in person in the least, people in Florida, New England, the UK, Texas - people years older than me, people from different social classes than me, people I never would have met without the Internet. And though I had friends 'irl' as well, the relationships I had with my writing partners online were many of them very close. We shared photos of ourselves, personal information, and at times had serious, genuine emotional discourse. After a while, I ceased having time for such activity, and I haven't contacted them much since then, but I know that the group I was part of stays in online contact. They have each other's phone numbers, they consult each other in crisis, and they've even met in person a few times. Their relationship, conducted via the Internet across borders of state and even country, was as close as those of any friends who might have met in person. They trusted each other. So I can say without question that I believe in the power of digital communication to bring people together in a genuine way, rather than pushing them apart - I've witnessed it, and even experienced it, myself.
The other point that intrigued me, showing up mostly in Baym, was the idea of reproducing verbal/nonverbal cues through an exclusively textual setting by playing with font, effect, color, html, and even grammar, as exemplified in lolcats, among other memes. Baym suggests that this activity may help create immediacy in SMS and IM conversations, rather than being merely a symptom of sloth or lack of grammatical knowledge on the part of the communicators. Initially when I started using the Internet, texting, etc., I was obsessed in my pursuit of correct grammar and spelling in all my posts and interactions online. However, as time has passed, I've found myself more and more slipping on this - not using periods, capitalization, sometimes abbreviating words arbitrarily, etc. I use emoticons to express feelings when my actual facial expression can't, and I use italics, bold, and caps lock to indicate tone of voice where there is none. The use of these tricks to create artificial immediacy and flow, and to display personality, is something I really enjoy doing. Outside of chat, I've even seen it done in webcomics. One comic I read in particular uses these tricks to great effect. The main characters spend much of the plot physically separate from one another, communicating solely through instant messaging chat clients. To tell them apart, in long conversations shown solely through chat logs, each character types using a distinct style and color - some with punctuation, some without, some with capitalization, some without, some always typing in caps, etc. The individual style in which each character types not only distinguishes them from one another, it also conveys distinct personality styles and vocal qualities where there are none (for example, a character with a lisp who replaces his 's's with '2's when he types). The idea that these quirks can be used to express immediacy and personality, rather than laziness, is something I'd been trying to put words to for some time, and reading these Baym and B&B chapters was very helpful for me in this way.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Sturken & Thomas: Technological Visions and Griffin: Media Ecology of Marshall McLuhan
When I'm at home and I chat with my Dad about what I'm doing at college, he always describes to me how, at the time that he went to college, the experience was striking because of the new ideas he was hearing, and how his views were being challenged - and I'm always forced to respond (perhaps because I was raised in a liberal family and there's something of a liberal bias on college campuses?) that I honestly don't feel the same way - I feel college is enlightening, and intellectually challenging, but my beliefs are challenged by my professors and classes rarely. However, to some extent, this class has been changing that fact. I live a life engrossed in technology, and I have my own instincts about how media shapes communication. But what if those are wrong?
Sturken & Thomas's article wasn't that challenging to me for the most part; much of it was similar to what we have so far read in Baym regarding the different ways people react in the presence of a new technology (a sense of hope for its possibilities coupled directly with a sense of loss about what those possibilities change and take away). The idea of a 'transportation narrative' accompanying new technologies was certainly interesting, but despite the limitations that the authors suggest this narrative imposes, I find I have trouble thinking of communication any other way. The point is a good one, and I suppose my reaction (inability to change those thought patterns) only proves it. At the very least, the transportation metaphor seems effective to me, although thinking in different ways might prove illuminating. (In the end, I think it's simply that I'm not sure how else to conceptualize communication, since the transportation metaphor is so fully ingrained in my mind.) The idea of technology as ahistorical was more striking, however. Generally, especially when I'm talking about communication, I am a firm believer in the absolute necessity of context - nothing ever happens outside of a given situation, and even if that situation doesn't excuse what somebody said, or did, knowing the situation can help us understand why things happened the way they did. But when I think about technology, I do indeed find myself thinking of it ahistorically, like the alphabet, the light bulb, and the computer were all just sitting in a void waiting to be discovered, instead of being invented in a specific historical context by a specific person with specific goals. Now that I've heard the idea, it changes that pattern of thought drastically. If I value context in communication, I must value it in invention - especially when that invention is pertinent to communication itself.
The Griffin article, for me, was harder to swallow, not for Griffin's perspective but for that of the object of his analysis, Marshal McLuhan. I am willing to admit that the types of media constrict, to some extent, what messages they transmit. Some stories are better told through television, some are better told through movies, and some are better told through comic books. But the content, in my opinion, remains key. Some media are better designed for specific tasks than others, yes; however much content can also transcend the media it takes place in. McLuhan insists that we shouldn't complain when a movie is not like the book it's based on, because the story told by the book is inherently different than the story told by the movie. However, when I see a film based on a book I've read, in many cases, I see what to me is the same story. Admittedly, as he says, 'content doesn't exist outside of the way it's mediated', but the specific medium certainly isn't all. The map he creates of ages in technology - tribal, literate, print, electronic - is compelling, but I feel it is incomplete in some respect. Each age encourages us to think, to sense, in a certain way (hearing, then sight, then hearing and touch again), but if each age leads naturally to the other, the senses of the previous age are not lost when time moves forward. Though McLuhan probably acknowledged this, he does not seem to have perceived it as terribly important, and as I maintain that context is of great import, I am inclined to disagree. Likewise, I have difficulty with the moral judgements made about television by McLuhan's successor, Neil Postman. There may be some truth in the idea that television encourages triviality over seriousness, but it is my concern that perceiving things so simplistically downplays human agency and thus absolves humans from responsibility for their actions and statements. McLuhan's theory of media ecology is valuable, but it has gaps.
The discussion of the digital age vs. the electronic age, and its effects on a 'global village', is more compelling to me. I've always been interested, even before beginning this class, on what exactly 'Internet culture' is, whether such a thing can even exist in an online community made of such disparate individuals in such exponentially large numbers. The Internet is dividing into sections, websites, and personalized Google search results, and how much of this is due to the technology itself compared to how much of this is due to the people who use it is a puzzle we may never solve for certain.
Sturken & Thomas's article wasn't that challenging to me for the most part; much of it was similar to what we have so far read in Baym regarding the different ways people react in the presence of a new technology (a sense of hope for its possibilities coupled directly with a sense of loss about what those possibilities change and take away). The idea of a 'transportation narrative' accompanying new technologies was certainly interesting, but despite the limitations that the authors suggest this narrative imposes, I find I have trouble thinking of communication any other way. The point is a good one, and I suppose my reaction (inability to change those thought patterns) only proves it. At the very least, the transportation metaphor seems effective to me, although thinking in different ways might prove illuminating. (In the end, I think it's simply that I'm not sure how else to conceptualize communication, since the transportation metaphor is so fully ingrained in my mind.) The idea of technology as ahistorical was more striking, however. Generally, especially when I'm talking about communication, I am a firm believer in the absolute necessity of context - nothing ever happens outside of a given situation, and even if that situation doesn't excuse what somebody said, or did, knowing the situation can help us understand why things happened the way they did. But when I think about technology, I do indeed find myself thinking of it ahistorically, like the alphabet, the light bulb, and the computer were all just sitting in a void waiting to be discovered, instead of being invented in a specific historical context by a specific person with specific goals. Now that I've heard the idea, it changes that pattern of thought drastically. If I value context in communication, I must value it in invention - especially when that invention is pertinent to communication itself.
The Griffin article, for me, was harder to swallow, not for Griffin's perspective but for that of the object of his analysis, Marshal McLuhan. I am willing to admit that the types of media constrict, to some extent, what messages they transmit. Some stories are better told through television, some are better told through movies, and some are better told through comic books. But the content, in my opinion, remains key. Some media are better designed for specific tasks than others, yes; however much content can also transcend the media it takes place in. McLuhan insists that we shouldn't complain when a movie is not like the book it's based on, because the story told by the book is inherently different than the story told by the movie. However, when I see a film based on a book I've read, in many cases, I see what to me is the same story. Admittedly, as he says, 'content doesn't exist outside of the way it's mediated', but the specific medium certainly isn't all. The map he creates of ages in technology - tribal, literate, print, electronic - is compelling, but I feel it is incomplete in some respect. Each age encourages us to think, to sense, in a certain way (hearing, then sight, then hearing and touch again), but if each age leads naturally to the other, the senses of the previous age are not lost when time moves forward. Though McLuhan probably acknowledged this, he does not seem to have perceived it as terribly important, and as I maintain that context is of great import, I am inclined to disagree. Likewise, I have difficulty with the moral judgements made about television by McLuhan's successor, Neil Postman. There may be some truth in the idea that television encourages triviality over seriousness, but it is my concern that perceiving things so simplistically downplays human agency and thus absolves humans from responsibility for their actions and statements. McLuhan's theory of media ecology is valuable, but it has gaps.
The discussion of the digital age vs. the electronic age, and its effects on a 'global village', is more compelling to me. I've always been interested, even before beginning this class, on what exactly 'Internet culture' is, whether such a thing can even exist in an online community made of such disparate individuals in such exponentially large numbers. The Internet is dividing into sections, websites, and personalized Google search results, and how much of this is due to the technology itself compared to how much of this is due to the people who use it is a puzzle we may never solve for certain.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Baym Chapter 2 and "It's Not the Technology, Stupid!" by Cathy Davidson
A brief introduction before I get started on my review:
Hello! I'm a sophomore student of communication at Lewis and Clark college in lovely Portland, OR, and I am currently taking a class taught by Daena Goldsmith on interpersonal media: that is, how media, especially new technologies, effect our relationships and identities and methods of communication. I'm a frequent internet user myself (honestly, most of my free time is spent browsing the web in one way or another) with quite a personal interest in the subject, both from an intellectual perspective and an emotional one, so I'm quite looking forward to the experience. I'll be blogging throughout the semester on our readings and, when I find them, occasionally sharing links (videos, articles, what have you) that I find relate to the subject matter of the course, possibly including my thoughts on them, possibly not. I'm making this blog public because I know several of my friends share an interest in this subject, and if they do, probably lots of folks online who I don't know do too! So please feel free to peruse.
On to the reading, the article that most caught my interest - maybe because it most aligned with my own views of the 'net - was "It's Not the Technology, Stupid! Response to NYT 'Twitter Trap'", by Cathy Davidson at HASTAC.org. Chapter two of the Baym book suggested that there are many different ways of perceiving the influence new technologies have on us and the influence we have on new technologies, and the way that is probably the most accurate (and which I most agree with) is the ideology of 'social shaping', which is to say that the process very much goes both ways, with humans finding new and innovative ways to use the new technologies we're presented with while simultaneously having our own identities, habits, and thought processes shaped by them to some extent. For me certainly, my constant use of and access to technology has severe effects on my day to day life and I can't imagine what I'd do, or even what life would be like, without it. But I'm not convinced that that's a bad thing, and I'm even less convinced that computers have somehow denied me all agency! People use the internet in unexpected means to unexpected ends that sometimes could not possibly have been achieved without the 'net's assistance (a key example: The Arab Spring).
What was most interesting to me in Davidson's article was her argument that, although technology surely was changing our lives (from our social standards to our work habits), that change is par for the course in a society where such standards and work habits never stay exactly the same for too long. It is not exactly a positive change - the Internet may not level communication completely across gaps of status, race, gender, etc., and it may not always serve to bring us closer to those we love. But it is not exactly a negative change either, as so many seem to advocate. Change is a neutral force. I will not deny, nor does Davidson, that the change we are currently undergoing with widespread use of the Internet becoming more and more the norm is a larger and stronger change than has been felt in Western society for quite some time. But that's no reason to demonize it excessively - and besides, wallowing in nostalgia will not stop change; it never has. (And from the perspective of an aspiring advocate of social justice, this is something of a godsend!) To be certain, computers shape us, but we shape them too, as we have always done with technology and as technologies have always done with us. In sum (or to use netspeak, TL;DR): just because this change is more massive than any before doesn't mean it's inherently new, or good, or bad. Everything is situational, online, offline, and throughout the whole of human history. As Davidson says:
"It's NOT the Technology, Stupid! It is about what we--you and I--do with the technology. It always has been, it always will be."
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