Author: n.mccarten

The Future of Digital Communication

This prompt made me think back to an episode of Parks and Recreation that aired in 2014 and was actually set in the “future” of 2017. In one scene, the characters are sent gift boxes via drone filled with items personalized to their taste. It comes to their knowledge that the company that controls their phone and Internet access has been data mining and selling the information they gather to other companies for selling purposes.

Being in the year 2017 now, it seems we are not too far from this scene becoming a reality. We are familiar with the idea of cookies and algorithms being used to consume information about us and feed it back to us in the form of personalized ads—but what is next? According to Facebook, communication between our brains and social platforms is not too far away. A post in the Economy Times details how Facebook’s Research and Development team are in the midst of developing software that will be able to effectively read users’ minds, allowing them to type without a keyboard and click without a mouse.

Image credit: Your Stylish Life

This kind of seamlessness between brain, device, and message made me think of the article that was attached in our blog post prompt. Within that article, the author talked of Internet access becoming “like electricity”, flowing invisibly and constantly. If Facebook can actually implement this technology, then our connection to social networks and smartphones will be more present and attaching than ever before. Our amount of privacy online would decrease even further since the power of the media would not only be in our hands, but in our heads.

With this issue of privacy taking on new heights, the government has become deeply invested. As privacy is such a divisive issue, the grounds for creating rules has become “a weird gray area” according to ACLU legislative counsel Neema Singh Giuliani. Considering technology’s supreme progression, it’s hard to imagine it will be in that gray area for long.

 

Questions:

  1. Would you appreciate a company like Amazon data mining to send you personalized gifts or would you feel violated by the invasion of privacy?
  2. If Facebook figures out the technology to track brain activity, would you continue to use the site? Why or why not?

 

 

Does the Government Own Us?

In watching the documentary, the question of ownership repeatedly came up, making me wonder about who really owns the content we put out into the world. (Spoiler alert: it’s not us.)

Ownership of content, especially on more modern and high volume  platforms like Twitter and Instagram, is a tricky business, one where reposting is half complimentary, half copying. When thieves profit off of stealing (see this article of an artist selling screenshots of others’ Instagram photos for $90,000 a pop), the issue of morality becomes even more confusing.

Photo: CNN

One of the topics that struck me during the film was the company Toysmart selling its customer database besides promising not to in a user agreement. This seemed to be the epitome of declining morality in the face of financial gain, a policy adapted by companies that followed in Toysmart’s lead—for example, Google’s privacy policy changing from guaranteeing anonymity in 2000 to taking away the promise of anonymity in 2001. The third fact the movie brought to my attention that spoke to a lack of digital morality was Facebook’s policy of sharing all information. I was stunned to learn that Facebook had replaced almost all CIA information-gathering programs by way of users voluntarily offering up information.

Perhaps social media and oversharing has become too big for us to care about our privacy…but the issue of ownership remains a disturbing reality.

Questions

  1. How would you react if one of your Instagram photos was “stolen” and sold as art, with you making none of the profit?
  2. Why do you think people are OK with willingly sharing so much of their personal lives on Facebook? (school, neighborhood, job, etc.)

 

 

No Mystery in Modern Romanc

The advent of social media has changed the world of dating, and no such platform has made bigger changes than Instagram. Created in 2010, the photo sharing app has revolutionized modern connections and created a platform where potential mates can research each other, closely follow each other, and even track how much they are being viewed.

Creating a digital memory book of sorts has made Instagram the first place to go when “looking into” a potential mate: e.g. what they look like, how they dress, what kind of activities they’re interested in. Following someone can also show us when they are active on the app and whose posts they are liking and commenting on. With the introduction of the new “Stories” feature, Instagram users are becoming even more ingrained in each other’s personal lives. Serving as a way to document one’s day, the Stories feature is a constantly updating timeline that lets the person who posted the story see who has viewed it. While this is normal for a feature like this, Instagram has used its “frequented user” algorithm to put the names of those who interact with your account the most at the top of the viewers list. For example, if you post a story and it is viewed by 1,000 people, Instagram will organize the list of viewers by their interaction to your account, with the most engaged users at the top of the list and those who have little interaction with your account at the bottom.

Image courtesy of Mashable 

This kind of “trackability” has changed modern connections, especially in dating. It’s too easy to be given almost too much information about a potential mate, to the point where it can make us either paranoid or uninterested.

Andrejevic uses a quote from Gehl in his writing that I believe  epitomizes this new age of Instagram. “In a typical Web 2.0 site, there is a surface, where users are free to produce content and make effective connections, and there is a hidden depth, where new media capitalists convert user-generated content into exchange-values” (2009, 25).  I think this accurately shows the double layer of Instagram use, where we are both purposefully creating content with our deliberate actions and “accidentally” creating content with our behavior.

Later in his writing, Andrejevic notes this divide in user-generated content. “The advent of the social Web and its mingling of social and professional networks casts at least some forms of user-generated-content in a different light.” This applies to Instagram, as our activity can look one way to us and appear differently to our followers and those who interact with us.

  1. Do you think Instagram is beneficial or detrimental to modern dating?
  2. How do you feel knowing that others can see how much you interact with their profile?

Social Identities

For this post, I interviewed my best friend and roommate, Rachel, a 21-year-old Fashion Merchandising student living in Lower Manhattan.

  1. What social media platforms do you use now/have you used in the past?

Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat now, Myspace in the past.

2. Do you use your real name? Have you ever used an alias or created a fake account?
I use my real name—in the past, I’ve made my username a nickname or something based off of my hobbies (dance).
3. What different personas do you construct in each of these platforms and how do they relate to aspects of life experiences?
Facebook is more of a way to stay connected to family and old friends—I give off a more  professional/innocent version of myself. Instagram is  for fashion and lifestyle, where I show off the best aspects of my life (cute outfits, good hair day, makeup, etc.).
Snapchat is only with friends and kept private. It’s where I post everyday stuff, funny stuff, and drunk nights going out.
4. Do the digital personas you construct help you cope with problems or do they create new problems?
They definitely cause problems…pictures with alcohol in them on Facebook can make you look like a “partier” and turn off employers, friends can find out they were left out of plans through social media, ex-boyfriends can see who you’ve moved on to, etc. Social media is only a tiny, skewed glimpse into someone’s life and can easily give off a completely different image of who you really are, which can really affect both your professional and personal life.
Interviewing Rachel echoed a lot of thoughts I’ve had while researching this subject. In Turkle’s writing, she talks about the idea of multiple identities within one person, an element of modern social life that Rachel touched upon in her interview. “The Internet is another element of the computer culture that has contributed to thinking of identity as a multiplicty,” she writes. This definitely holds true, as we see that people create different identities on each social platform when they choose what to share on each. Rachel’s view of each platform—Facebook as a family-friendly view of life, Instagram as a highlight reel, and Snapchat as a source of comedic, partying moments—seems to reflect the way a lot of millennials view these apps and their purposes in our social lives.
Adrian Athique comments on this view as well, writing about the idea of “self-presentation” and its place in modern social behavior. “…The public-private binary denotes a series of mutually understood social conventions which determine the most appropriate gestures for social media.” If this thinking is to be true, then it makes sense why we feel the need to separate and categorize each life event according to where it falls on the spectrum of social acceptability. For example, a heartfelt post on Mother’s Day might best be suited to Facebook while a video of friends clinking glasses at brunch would be better received on Snapchat.
Questions
1. Do you agree with these views of each platform and their audiences? If not, please explain your own views.
2. What are the possible consequences of posting something on the “wrong” platform?

Instagram Update: Hello, Slideshows

Announced today, Instagram will now allow users to post up to 10 photos and videos in one post, to be known as a slideshow or “carousel”. While advertisers have been able to utilize the carousel feature in sponsored ads for quite a few months, today marks the first day it’s available for general use. This new feature will allow users to combine multiple pictures and videos from one event and create one cohesive post, with one caption and one set of likes. Check out how to use the new feature here.

image via Refinery29

In an interview with Refinery29, Instagram product manager Yichen Weng shared the inspiration behind the new, potentially controversial feature. “The ability to upload multiple photos and videos within one post not only adds depth to those moments, but it also complements other products within the app, such as stories, in a way that makes it easier than ever to share your highlights and everything in between on Instagram.”

Considering today’s advance along with the introduction of Instagram Stories a few months ago, it seems that Instagram is looking to make itself the one-stop shop for social media. Users can now complete activities that it previously took three apps to do: photo sharing (Instagram), photo albums/extended photo posts (Facebook), and disappearing stories and photos (Snapchat). If the Instagram slideshow feature catches on as Instagram Stories has, then social users will just have one more feature causing them to spend more time on the app and become even more addicted.

In Couldry’s “Network Society, Networked Politics” he asks an important question that holds relevant to this recent development in social media: “But what of the transformative potential that stems from the radically new features of digital media?” (109) I think this question takes on new meaning when put in this context because it allows us to think of the enormous potential of social platforms and their constant evolution. If Instagram has already integrated features usually associated with other platforms (albums and stories) then what will be their next move? Will it be to integrate yet another feature “borrowed” from another application, or will it be something completely original and unprecedented?

In Couldry’s “Introduction to Social Theory and Digital Media”, he writes “Now in a world of email and Skype we live with —and alongside —each other in a communication space whose intensity and speed were unimaginable a few years ago.” (27) I quote this part of his text because the phrase “intensity and speed” spoke to this situation. Instagram has revolutionized digital and social communication, as well as interpersonal relationships, by making moments instantly shareable and creating a constant need to share our own lives and consume others’.

Questions:

  1. What do you think of the new slideshow/carousel feature on Instagram? Do you think it will catch on like Instagram Stories has?
  2. How do you feel knowing companies like Instagram are obviously trying to get their users to spend more time on the app?

Digital Revolution

Tracking my online activity for an hour showed me just how much the Internet has reduced my attention span…after looking at something for mere seconds, I move on to the next thing unless I am absolutely fascinated. During my hour, I watched and replied to Snapchats, read the news via the New York Times Twitter account, searched for a vintage jersey I’ve been wanting on Etsy, Ebay, and Depop, and got lost in the familiar black hole that is the Instagram explore page. Aside from reading the news at home, doing all of these activities pre-Internet would have been virtually impossible. Connections with friends would not be as constant and maybe not as strong—one of the reasons I believe this generation feels so close is because we are constantly texting, Snapping funny pictures, DMing memes we think our friends will laugh at too, etc. Looking at it from a strictly advantageous point of view, the Internet has made life significantly more convenient. Instead of flipping through racks for hours at a consignment store, I can search for the vintage piece I want online. Instead of having to source a trend report from Doneger, I can go on Instagram and see what pieces are hot right now.

In Coudry’s text, he points out that although we are all inundated with media from every angle, we choose which media to actively consume. “The recent waves of media saturation are cumulative, making the term ‘saturation’ inadequate…But how saturated by media each person’s world is—how actively people select from the media landscape available to them—remains uncertain.” To me, this feels especially relevant on social platforms like Instagram and Twitter where we choose who to follow, what posts to click on, what posts to share. We’re able to tailor our online experiences to our preferences, customizing these platforms so that we can get the most out of them according to our wants and needs. But perhaps this can also serve as a disadvantage—by choosing just to follow, like, and share that which we already have an established interest in, we may be missing out on discovering new topics of interest.

In my opinion, digital media is mostly positive if we are sure to remember one thing: social media is deceiving. Social, arguably the most engaging and “important” part of digital media, has the ability to be all-consuming, to serve as a platform of comparison, leading some people to simply quit rather than continue on with the facade.

credit: The Guardian

Instagram star Essena O’Neill (above) changed all the captions on her photos before completely quitting social media, citing the fake nature and unrealistic standards the online culture promotes. Her act made headlines, leading me to ask the following questions…

  1. Do you think quitting social media fixes the issues associated with it? (example: body image in O’Neill’s case)
  2. It’s no secret social media has made many of us more competitive—do you notice this translating to your “real” life as well?