Teenage Wastelands

As I turn my attention to teens, I can’t help but see the ironies in their identity creation through information communication technology.

“American society has a very peculiar relationship to teenagers – and children in general. They are simultaneously idealized and demonized; adults fear them but they also seek to protect them…youth have very little access to public spaces. The spaces they can hang out in are heavily controlled and/or under surveillance” (414-415) which is why according to boyd, teens are drawn to social media. The idea of networked spaces as ideal places for teens, are made in comparison to the metaphoric “mall”…as the place to be seen in public. The internet allows teens to loiter in the spaces of the internet.

Interestingly, “…what teens are doing with this networked public is akin to what they have done in every other type of public they have access to: they hang out, jockey for social status, work through how to present themselves, and take risks that will help them to assess the boundaries of the social world. They do so because they seek access to adult society. Their participation is deeply rooted in their desire to engage publicly” (415). While hanging out online is all for show of social status, not having online presence can be seen as social suicide.

In a Ryerson mediated presentation about privacy policies and social media by University of Western Ontario professor, Jacquelyn Burkell, the question of our honesty on Facebook is raised. She found there was a common thread of projection on what she calls Facebook insiders (as opposed to the conservatives): who are younger, with larger social capital, lots of usage, lots of pics of them drinking, perhaps a sense of naiveté that they may later regret and reconsider their image. However, she also points out that these images and portrayals are carefully contrived and engineered. They know what they are doing because they post with the understanding that it will be looked at, and as such, they post it to look good.

In understanding and misunderstanding of what our audience, and who are selected audience is, it may seem that we can pick and choose our followers. The reality is, the entire world has access to our online profiles and identities whether we like it or not. While employers can look at a potential hire’s Facebook page, teens argue otherwise that it’s private only to them. But such is the nature of posting online. It’s an unwritten agreement of sharing it with the entire online world.

Burkell also touched on an idea of a “biographical record” as being scary and complicated. As stated, stories are told and re-told. But in re-telling stories, like the game of broken telephone, or embellishments of narrators, things can get misconstrued along the way. Thus, can people misinterpret my online identity thus understanding my real being as something entirely different from what I set out to construct?

To: My loyal subjects…I mean, Followers…I mean, Friends

I would like to dedicate this post to the “Unplugged” episode on Ryan Murphy’s TV show The New Normal, which happens to poetically coincide with my addiction to my cellular smart phone experience lately. I’ve been experiencing some insomnia for the past little bit, and my boyfriend with a confounded *sigh* has pointedly told me that it’s probably due to my repeated use (or perhaps misuse) of my cellphone before bedtime.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have Twitter, so I don’t do the Twitter-sphere bit. Despite having Facebook, I hardly ever go on. A little maintenance here and there, and that’s about it…unless I’m really bored and desperate to kill time. Oddly, Instagram has taken a new obsession over me. Aside from Instagram, I also play a lot of word puzzle games on my phone. I emphasize A LOT. Between those two, I will admit that it probably clocks in about 5 solid hours a day. And I wonder where my sleep has gone…

My cellphone has become the first thing I turn to when I wake up – like actually. As soon as I open my eyes, I reach for my phone. In my defense, I check the time, press snooze about 12 more times, and then check the weather app on my phone. My cellphone is also the last thing before I go to bed. My argument contrary to what my boyfriend thinks is that it helps me fall asleep. He says staring at the screen so much has probably messed my internal clock thus leading to my sleeplessness. Mind you, I have also been staying up late from procrastinating from my schoolwork.  So, in light of the recent episode and the idea of limiting information communication technology usage, my boyfriend’s challenge to me is to go one week without bringing my cellphone to bed.

On a related note, and reflecting on the last post on Young and Steeves and how we are moving towards living our lives as open and public, I started to think about the idea of people experiencing life through technology rather than experiencing important milestones as is. To just be in the moment and enjoy it for what it is. Videotaping your newly vehicle licenced teenaged child drive officially…I get it, it’s exciting that your child is growing up. But how about A) keep your extra eyes on the road (just because safety first), B) teaching your child good road etiquette (cellphones while driving is illegal where I’m from, but if it’s not for you, a new driver probably shouldn’t be doing both), 3) whatever happened to keeping memories as memories in the brain…not documented? Okay, maybe this example is a little extreme…or consider this, so many young parents are caught up with witnessing their toddler take their first steps through a lens, rather than actually absorbing that sacred moment and witnessing with them.

Furthermore, I have to embarrassingly confess that I was caught off guard of being swept along with the idea of having followers when I discovered the stat section on this WordPress blog site. I caught myself checking to see if people were reading it, and what part of the world from. And then I started thinking about ways to “pimp” my blog out such as providing a link to Facebook. But the reality is, it’s weird to have a stranger follow you around in real life, so why is it normal and sought after online? My guess, for validation; but to what extent? What does this achieve? Why and how is this different from offline in the real world?

In line with moving towards a more public life, here’s a quote from the show (The New Normal) spoken by Rocky to Nana: “In today’s world, if you don’t exist online, you don’t exist”. Does this mean I’m valued more online as a faceless entity than my offline self as a human being? What message is that enforcing in the end?

Maybe it isn’t just Nana, maybe we’re all monkeys whose been handed loaded guns. Now y’all take the next minute to ReTweet, RePost, and Trend this…

Computer, you’ve got me good again.

Sam 2, Computer 4

People, No Photos Please! Can’t Catch a Break…

In retrospect to a previous post of the artist Robert Williams and his painting Symbiotic Mediocrity, Young makes references to author Gary Shteyngart and his novel Super Sad True Love Story, and how the people in the novel walk around like living avatars. I picture us the same way thus reminding me of Robert Williams. Rather than seeing and identifying someone by their face, I see them through their social media profile.

To sum up Young, she states that “…the boundary between what we share online and what we keep private seems to be moving in one direction only, toward being more public…Perhaps you will start to look as if you have something to hide if you don’t want to be public” (p. 113). Furthermore, Young points out that we are “…now routinely encouraged to have well-curated online identities, even if that shiny, impersonal simulacrum of a self doesn’t really reflect the real you” (p. 113). Which I thought was interesting in how it plays into our lives. It seems that we are breeding, enabling, and promoting the idea that it’s okay to be fake, so long as you share something…anything, so that you don’t seem suspect to the masses that you might be hiding a secret.

This leads me into Steeves and the perception of privacy. She states that technology has enabled privacy to die. As we are in the habit and obsession of documenting everything, we leave “virtual tracks” which ultimately is surveillance without the intrusion. We are willingly letting outsiders monitor us. Think Google and Gmail, if you’re signed in, it tracks everything you look up. Yet Steeves also maintains a Foucauldian view that surveillance is needed as a means of regulation as it “…increases security, reduces crime, cuts costs, and fuels the information economy” (p. 342). BUT! She counters this view by saying that “The right to privacy is not about secrecy; it’s about autonomy” (p. 342). Thus, it’s not about keeping things tight-lipped and classified, but rather, it’s about the right to being our own beings as individuals with agency.

Hmm, what about Trudeau’s famous quote: “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”. With technology, social media, and the internet, it HAS in a sense entered the bedroom. Only, things don’t seem so private anymore. Agree? Disagree?

To further our right to privacy and autonomy, Steeves argues that “Privacy, the right to be free from being watched, spied upon, and tested, is a human right because it is an essential part of human dignity and autonomy. Life without privacy makes it impossible to enjoy the dignity and freedom that human rights seek to protect” (346). However I can’t help but consider the circumstances of the internet and social media. On the one hand there’s the invisibility of “watchers” ie: media dogs that track us online such as Google. On the other hand are the masses, us as watchers of each other – the ease of photographing and videotaping with smartphones, posting on YouTube, you get the picture. No matter where we turn, big brother is watching, God is watching, Santa is watching, and we are watching. I can’t catch a break!

Steeves argues that information given “freely” online is too valuable as a market tool. Furthermore, the government and institutions will argue in favour and position that its beneficial to the public ie: crime reduction. Steeves also points out that while there are legislative practices that claim to protect privacy, there is a loophole. “Consent” has to be given to allow for the access of private information, but that consent is hidden as part of the agreement that allows us to use the service in the first place – it’s built into the package of signing up. So if we refuse consent then we can’t even use the service. This not only extends to online, but also with banks, employment etc. Yet, a lot of these services also have online applications like mobile cellular online banking. Which you need to sign in through email, or your Facebook, or your cell phone number. Ultimately, the bank (or whatever it is you signed up for) now has access to your email and phone information, and anything else you’ve “agreed” to.

Convenient, yes. Safe and sound, could be – although that’s up for debate. Feeling a little naked from leering eyes, that’s probably more like it. Thus, is there such a thing as privacy anymore?

To Connect? Or not to Connect?

As I take my notes from Turkle and Rosen from Digital Divide, with our interactions with social media, we are negotiating our own selves and beings. Thus, creating a fragmented and multiplicitous culture. Distinctions are being made unclear as it seems we are constructing a magical realist society. The notion of the computer and information communication technologies are blurring our boundaries between what really exists as real, and the fake. I am skeptical to dare say that this is a postmodern view and reality. Why? Because if all that is happening right now is postmodern, then what do we make of this ever so fast and evolving nature of the internet and information communication technology? Is there such a thing as post–postmodern?

Anyway, moving on, Turkle presents the idea of the identity as being flexible, acting in many possibilities of multiplicity. This allows for the ability to construct and reconstruct with social media as an outlet for self-discovery leading to self-transformation. Yet, Turkle points out that the pieces are fragmentary, blurred.

Turkle also draws parallels to the online persona(s) to Multiple Personality Disorder and the notion of “alters“, like the idea that we perform certain identities under certain circumstances in Goffman’s idea of performance management. For example, I often catch myself planning what I might be wearing if I’m going to see certain professors, like I’m trying to emulate myself based off of their values, thoughts, and ideologies, thus assuming a different identity as the flexible self. Do I dress more conservatively? Modestly? Laid-back? I enjoy the art of the fashion industry, so if I’m dressed fashion-forward in front of a professor, would they take me seriously? This can be compared to our heightened sense of multi-tasking, and our abilities of being able to switch our identities like we switch back and forth between open pages, tabs, and documents on the computer. But it’s also about constructing to conform, and re-constructing to be our own, and negotiating our portrayals based on others views and reactions towards us.

As we are constantly being pushed and pulled while in the practice of switching between personalities, Rosen declares that “We must consider what type of behaviour online social networking encourages” (p. 173). Rosen posits that we are in a state of collecting and performing. We craft our online identities like an interactive portrait, and like Turkle, we negotiate parts of ourselves through Foucault’s and Goffman’s idea of surveillance of the collective, but also through Eric McLuhan’s idea of actively participating in our own theatrical stage for our own self.

But as we construct our identity, it is brought to question of whether our identities and existence are undermined as we are identified next to fictional characters, sports mascots etc., when they have their own pages and identity and given the same platform of identity and importance as real people. This certainly blurs the boundary between fake and the real.

Relating back to Foucault and Goffman, is the juxtaposition of the online vs. offline world and how we are regulated, watched, learn norms, and act. This is primarily done offline, but the online world is challenging how we learn these things and is changing the way we interact and present ourselves.

More importantly, “We should also take note of the trend toward giving up face-to-face for virtual contact” (p. 187). Rosen provides the example of online banking example over going to a teller or ATM. We, as in the users of information communication technology seem to place less emphasis and value on human interaction and authentic/genuine connection as we

“…avoid the vulnerability and uncertainty that true friendship entails. Real intimacy requires risk–the risk of disapproval, of heartache, of being thought a fool. Social networking websites may make relationships more reliable, but whether those relationships can be humanly satisfying remains to be seen” (188).

As we craft, re-touch, re-work, re-build our identities, are we getting lost and losing sight of who we really are? Or are we evolving our own selves to a higher level? If we are living in Plato’s Cave as Eric McLuhan pointed out, are we disillusioned? If according to Rosen, we are valuing less in the real and authentic, then what’s the point of our performances? Is it for naught? Who really cares? And what of the real-life relationships of the face-to-face kind? Yes the vulnerable aspect of meaningful relationships is scary, but how does one connect by not opening up and (for lack of a better term)…connecting?