Baym: Concluding Chapter

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.

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.

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.