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?

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?

Everything as Nothing and Meaningless… I. Do. Not. Exist.

I’d like to introduce to you, Eric McLuhan. You guessed it, he is the son of Marshall McLuhan, and yes…as the saying goes: like father, like son. Needless to say, Eric McLuhan has also done his fair share of work on media and technology.

As I read McLuhan2.0’s Electric Language, the notion of technological determinism really seemed to surface. I’ll admit, I never considered this idea before aside from biological, cultural, and economic determinism. But, after my last post regarding our Wall-E world, my head is swimming around trying to make sense of our pixellated matrix world.

McLuhan2.0 pointed out a lot of things. But I’ll try to narrow down to a few observations and thoughts.

1. We are living in the age of post literacy yet, there is no such thing as an advanced book – you know, high-tech-gadgety ones. This includes anything read off a computer screen or the TV. McLuhan states that although you may read like you would from print medium, the computer medium possesses qualities of TV. Thus, you may think you are reading, but the method is entirely different. I won’t get into it here, but this idea goes back to Marshall McLuhan and the differences between hot and cold mediums and their effects. So, this leaves me wondering…what about Kobo readers? They seem to be picking up. Would you consider them true reading like a book, or is it McLuhan’s idea of the advanced book? Where are books and print headed? But since my work and focus is around identity, I digress. Interesting to ponder anyhow.
2. “The computers and various networks that link us bring about a new condition of massive loss of identity by means of participation in-depth in electronic processes” (p. 4): what?! According to McLuhan, the computer separates us, yet binds us together. By participating socially via the computer, we lose our identity and own being. Our sense of loss thus draw us to groups to belong. This leads to the idea of the disappearance of individualism as McLuhan states that rather instead of an audience watching, we are all participating as actors like a theatre…to no one but our own selves.
3. Open crowd vs. closed crowd. The open crowd needs to be everywhere and grow, and can’t be stagnant. The closed crowd has boundaries and limits. Stable. McLuhan places the electric crowd as open. Which poses the question “are you in or out?” BUT!!…The electric crowd is NOT about growing, but of being. To just be. This made me think of a concert for example. Everyone is separate, as their own selves attending the concert and watching. But at the same time everyone is participating together in a shared moment. Online space works like this. Yet the mass audience works similarly, but differently at the same time. In search of one’s own online identity, everyone seems to want to be identified as unique and different, special. A standout above the rest. However, McLuhan posits that everyone is the same in an electric crowd. In a sense, we are nobody. I disagree, as I notice people going to arms lengths to portray themselves better than their neighbour. Or…is it because we are nobodies that compel us to appear better than the rest?

I return to this question from my past post…Does this mean we are living in an existentialist and/or nihilist absurd world?

Eric McLuhan also draws some connections to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Dismal and disheartening this may sound, but as I reflect on my last post, we are all living in Plato’s Cave. The computer as the cave. The internet, social media, and information communication technology are the puppets; and we are chained by them and the shadows they create…”The electric crowd lives as if already dead” (148).

Ode to Marshall McLuhan

I have been dropping references to McLuhan here and there, so it is probably about time I ramble on my thoughts about him. As such, this post will look at The Playboy Interview and some of my readings from his book Understanding Media. Living in a post colonial, post industrial, globalized (the list can go on) country (and world) , what does that mean for me?

It was Marshall McLuhan who recognized the facets of technology and the nature of living in a “global village”. However, I can probably bet that when he coined the term “global village”, he wasn’t referring to the one that exists today. What McLuhan meant was that the world as we know it is shrinking. Where it may have at one point taken months to travel across “the pond”, our world became more globalized thanks to the advances in technology.

McLuhan also posited that three basic technological advances has forever reshaped the way we physically see things, thus understand, and ultimately interact: the invention of the phonetic alphabet, the movable type, and the telegraph. What he also warns is that although we are making human progress, we are also enslaving ourselves to it. Forever married in sickness and in health – technology becomes an extension of our bodies til death do us part.

Yet, going back to the notion of McLuhan’s “global village”, this certainly more than ever rings true today. Information communication technology and social media has now connected me to my next door neighbour, as well as my online neighbour who lives half way across the world. We literally are living in a GLOBAL VILLAGE as I participate with the online community, coming together, sharing my thoughts-rambles-feelings-emotions-ideas-frustrations and on and on. Just as my best friend can comment and give me suggestions on my choice outfits for a date, a stranger can also pipe in giving me his or her fashion advice. If I’m outraged about a service from a company, I can shout it out on an online discussion board sharing my feelings with others in the same boat in my surrounding city, but also worldwide. So yes, I live participating everyday connected whether I know it or not, with others around the world sharing ourselves to each other in our global village. In my opinion, this is awesomely scary.

McLuhan speaks of a de-tribalized man, and the decentralizing nature of technology making references of our central nervous system. As I make meaning of this, I realize that what he means is this. When the human body is attacked, the body autopilots to safeguard the core: the central nervous system. So, the computer works like a virus. Our body then works to fight off the intruder, not only leaving our outer extremities exposed, but leaves at risk our core an open target. Thus, de-centralizing our whole being and suspending us into a trance-like numbness: narcosis.

As we are closing ourselves off through the use of media and technology, I draw parallels to Karl Marx and his atheist belief and view in religion as he saw religion as “the opium of the people“. Opium as we know is used to relieve pain. But is also addictive. Like opium, religion and technology are like an addictive drug that disillusions its users. Technology is now moving instantaneously. While we were able to slowly adapt, understand, and see the patterns of newly introduced technology, the internet is so fast paced that we are swept up along with it, taking our understandings and the ability to fully grasp and comprehend its true form and nature. We haven’t had the time to settle down with it. While it may seem like our relationship with the internet and social media are very much like an old married couple, we are still in the “getting to know you honeymoon” stages.

“Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users” (20). Prisons Mr. McLuhan? So you’re saying media has a totalizing panoptic effect? Foucault and Goffman are rolling in their graves.

So it seems, technology as both blessing and a curse.

Lastly, what struck me from McLuhan was this: “The future of works consists of earning a living in the automation age” (346). Scary thought. That we will soon be seeking jobs that serve technology, rather than thinking technology as serving us. This is starting to sound like a sci-fi movie. While technology seemingly frees us up for more leisure time, we are spending it back into technology which then enslave and bind us to a vicious cycle.