Finstas

Below is a link to an older article on what I've only observed on my own instagram feed over the course of the last year or so. At first I dismissed the idea of a finsta outright. However, as I followed more of my friend's finsta accounts, I noticed some interesting effects.

First, the habit become normalized...the more finstas I was exposed to the less weird it seemed. Next, it became a sort of affirmation of closeness. If you someone wanted to you to follow their finsta, it meant they felt close enough to be real with you.

Further, this created norms of what was appropriate when it came to following people's finstas. I caught on quickly--it puts people in a weird position if you request to follow their finsta but they do not want you to follow them; it creates an awkward sense that you perceive more closeness in your relationship with said person than they feel comfortable reciprocating. The best way to mitigate this potentially uncomfortable situation is to wait for people to request to follow your regular account with their finsta account; this gives you the green light to request their finsta in return.

Finally, the more finsta posts are integrated into my everyday reality the more ideas pop into my head for my own potential finsta posts--even though I don't have a finsta account!

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/fashion/instagram-finstagram-fake-account.html

"I f**king hate science"

I remember when the IFLS ("I F**cking Love Science") Facebook page was incredibly popular, and how widely disseminated their posts were. I also remember the one time they published a piece about gender not being biological, and the comments went from "yeah!!! science!!!" to "those damn SJWs", it's interesting to see how scientism intersects with a lot of other gross things sometimes.

https://www.salon.com/2017/05/07/i-fucking-hate-science/


"Beyond such negative effects on the nitty-gritty of hard science, popularization and simplification pose a broader cultural problem. With their paraphrased ideas, relatable yarns, and mic-dropping, “Yeah science, bitch!” approach to the field, the pop-star scientists command a genuine authority. And they pass that authority onto their readers and fans, who rush to their defense to attack smirking Twitter jokers and share “I Fucking Love Science” memes. Pop science offers the general public the air of authority and credibility of science without all the. . . you know, science. There’s a word for this highly empirical, authoritative worldview: scientism.

Scientism refers to the view that science possesses a unique claim to truth, and that it reduces knowledge to that which is provable by the scientific method. It’s not even a particularly new or novel idea."

Thought I'd put this up here, even if no one is still checking in:

Don't let facebook make you miserable

I just came across this article on Reddit today: http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-howard-genius-einstein-american-science-2017-4?r=US&IR=T
It's about how a TV producer Ron Howard has been trying to make scientists into celebrities, because he believes it should be pushed and funded the most for the future of America. He produced the TV show "Genius" and the well-known movie "A Beautiful Mind".
I thought this fit well with our debates on the importance of science and that it was an interesting article because it rose a lot of questions. For example, I love "A Beautiful Mind" but it was actually criticized for misrepresenting John Nash's life and the mental illness of schizophrenia. It made me wonder about the wisdom in what the article promotes when it states "shows like "Genius" give filmmakers a chance to cut through the politics that often distort science, and remind people about the value of exploration", but then puts its own bias and distortion on the representation of scientists. By framing it as the "truth" and "unbiased", it rang false to me. I think it's important to fund science, but not by misrepresenting it in the media like this.

Is social media the main cause of political polarization?

Link to the article: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/12/15259438/social-media-political-polarization

Based on this research (http://www.nber.org/papers/w23258), this article argues that it is not social media that polarizes the politics. The research studies how political polarization changed between 1996 and 2012. The result was that eight out of the nine measures of political polarization increase more in the old people than in the young people. Since social media is much more popular among the young people than the old people, this seems to suggest that social media is not the main reason that has caused political polarization. As written in the article, "if Facebook is the problem, then how come the problem is worst among those who don’t use Facebook?" The researchers then proposed two hypotheses for the actual main cause of polarization: one is structural issues, like income inequality, and the other is non-digital media. After all, just as Facebook users can live in a bubble, people can also choose to only subscribe to media outlets whose political views they agree with.

ketogenic diet

For my virtual ethnography I have decided to study the ketogenic diet support group that I am a part of on facebook. First here is some background information to help you understand, the ketogenic diet is a low carb, moderate protein and high fat diet. The idea is that when you cut out the majority of carbs your body will switch to burning fat for fuel from your fat intake and also from your bodily fat. Through this diet, many group members have lost weight and at a very quick pace too. Though there have been studies demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of the ketogenic diet(keto), the general public is usually unaware of keto and even less aware of the research backing it. Instead, what most people believe is that fat is the enemy when it comes to weight and health because that has long been the belief in the medical community. Because of how controversial the diet can be, it is common that ketoers have a hard time finding support and the will to maintain this diet. This is where the online support groups come in. The groups function not only to educate beginners but also to help people maintain the diet with food inspiration posts, transformation inspiration posts and general posts just asking for help. Over the last few weeks I have noticed that in posts discussing cheating, which means to eat carbs or something "not keto", the vocabulary used to describe cheating can be rather extreme and can also have a religious component to it. People have called carbs "the devil", they have stated that eating carbs is "sinning", even just the word cheat has negative connotations. I think that demonizing carbs can play a role in helping people maintain the diet because in their minds eating carbs has now not only become something that would be bad for their health but also a moral wrongdoing almost.

Ghosting

During the week that we were discussing media ideologies in the context of relationships, one thing that came to mind at the time was the concept of "ghosting". I first heard of the term about a year or so ago. "Ghosting" is the label for when a person that you have gone on a date(s) with suddenly cuts you off. They stop responding to texts, messages, and any other form of communication on any social media platform. In the conversations that I have had "ghosting" usually also implies a negative view of the person who does the ghosting because it is generally seen as rude to stop all communication with no explanation whatsoever. I think that part of the reason why being "ghosted" can be so jarring and also embarrassing for the people who have been "ghosted" is due to the fact that we are so hyperconnected to people nowadays. Once you get to know someone you often add them on multiple social media platforms and may maintain your relationship through all of those different platforms. In being "ghosted", that person is refusing to associate with you on every level that you had become accustomed to using with them before. This dramatic drop off from hyperconnected to no connection at all is not only surprising but also embarrassing because nowadays it is uncommon to cut off all ties so harshly. In class we mentioned how unfriending someone on facebook can be seen as a very harsh action to take despite the action only happening within a virtual platform, in the same way this refusal to make contact can be a very harsh action because it is a rejection on multiple levels and with no explanation at all. I wonder if there are any gender differences in the use of "ghosting" with respect to how commonly it is used, for what reasons people will "ghost", and general opinions on whether it is alright to "ghost" people. I also wonder if before the age of dating apps and cellphones if there was an earlier version of "ghosting" or if loss of communication was just viewed as a normal end of a relationship.

Another thought along the lines of the integration of technology now is something I've been dealing with for a little bit. My dad actually didn't have a smartphone until last summer, and he didn't have any wifi fed to his "dumb" phone either (not that it would have made much of a difference given how slow it was). He was extremely resistant to getting a smartphone, insisting that he didn't need it and that all that newfangled technology was degrading to our society. He disliked seeing me, my brother, and my mom getting smartphones and then seeing us so attached to them throughout the day. He also liked the 3-day-lasting battery life of his current phone. In the end though, society wore him down.

He couldn't use entire online platforms like Venmo or Snapchat (he was jealous that I always sent my mom snaps) or location or messaging services to their full extent. This included Google Maps, banking apps, or Kakaotalk (the app Koreans use to talk to friends and family). He was especially concerned about Kakaotalk because it meant he couldn't talk to his family at his home in Korea. People would email him for business and not understand why he would take a while to answer his emails since he didn't have a smartphone pinging that he had an email, so his job standing also suffered (especially since he's a computer engineer). When everyone else was adapted to this new technology, my dad was the unusual one for not having a smartphone, and all the new behaviors that come about from having a smartphone flew over his head. In the end, he admitted that there were too many quickly arising obstacles to continue not getting a smartphone and gave in reluctantly. It's kind of depressing, because my dad still sort of despises his new smartphone, but uses it anyways to go along with society's flow. It's illuminating as to how new technologies can change and force society to depend on them to the point that not having them is a legitimate handicap.

"Interest Survey"

Ever since we read "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about the construction of romantic relationships online. Nowadays, the internet has proved to be a method of communication and relationship building. I'm not only referring to couples that meet online and begin their relationship via the internet, I'm also referring to couples who met in person and go through most of their relationship in person. The technology and the internet is a source to further those relationships during the brief periods of time the couple may be apart. Or, perhaps, the internet and technology are a helpful tool allowing more and more long-distance couples to succeed.

I've been trying to pay more attention to how the internet builds love interests for a couple weeks now. Recently, I had a conversation with my good friend about his current romantic interest. He was expressing the fact that he wasn't sure how she felt about him, and it was difficult to gage the next steps he wanted to take. I expressed that he should probably just talk to her. Then, however, he told me about his solution for this issue: a google survey. I was in disbelief and tried to convince him otherwise, telling him that was a weird of clarifying things. He laughed the entire time--he knew what an odd choice of communication a google survey was, but he was still keen on sending it. He sent me the survey so I could see it myself--I've attached the photos below (excuse the filled in answers, I filled it out as a joke!).
 

I was mortified for him. But after thinking about it over the next couple of days, I though about how this could be an example of the shift towards technology and the internet taking more of a crutch in building relationships. I didn't want to be too harsh on him, but I did think it was an interesting intersection of technology and relationships, allowing technology to replace what usually would be done in person. 

Our Reliance on Technology

My friend had a pretty bad day today: she spilled hot coffee onto her Macbook computer, effectively frying her server and leaving her without a computer during one of the most stressful times of the school year, finals time. When she texted what happened to a group chat of a couple friends, everyone was pretty horrified, and rightly so, because in this day and age, especially in college, I would say it is incredibly hard to get through school without a personal computer. I personally have not met anyone who does not own a laptop at WashU. From writing essays, taking notes on the computer, and completing online assignments, much of our college academic life relies on having a functional laptop. We were devastated for her because she had lost all her semester’s work of essays and notes and was also left without a computer to finish the rest of her work. This made me reflect on how important and relevant computers have become in our education. Even just a few decades ago, computers were used more for industrial use and only some households had one for the whole family. Now, it is common for every member of a family to have a laptop (at least in the socioeconomic class that WashU is situated within) and it has become so that it is pretty hard to function at school, work, or society without one.

It would be interesting to read an anthropological article or conduct one’s own ethnography on how technology has infiltrated and changed the educational structures in modern day. 

Reflections from Experimental Bio

I just returned from the Experimental Biology conference in Chicago. It's a joint conference for several scientific societies, including the American Society for Nutrition. The tagline: "Transforming the Future through Science."

It was about as technoscientific as it sounds. As my first time attending, I was curious to see what the discourse in the field is like. Because my own research straddles social science, public health, and medicine, I've had a more difficult time finding my "people" within the field. Although I made a few good connections, it was clear fairly early on that most in the discipline are steeped within a reductionist paradigm to nutrition that often fails to take into account broader social context. As just a snippet of the programming:

Several sessions later on were more encouraging. Marion Nestle spoke on the conflicts of interest entrenched in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. I saw lots of people nodding in agreement throughout her presentation, but I have a hunch that their thought process, like mine, went something like: "Yes, this needs changing. But how do we shift the focus of the field given the direction it has gone for the past 30 years combined with industry interests?" Nestle herself had disclosed her financial interests. She's currently funded by an "independent" organization started by KIND Bar's CEO. All the more intriguing since Nestle herself keeps a running tally of industry funded research on her blog. 

Fun story: Several sessions were sponsored by the California Almond Board. Guess what we had for breakfast? And lunch. And snacks. (I will say, though, I've never had a fresher almond.) Maybe more ironic was ending a session in which there was fairly good discussion on processing levels of foods to retire to a lunch of deli meat on white bread. I've always wondered if nutritionists are perhaps at greater risk of bias in research (or at least hypocrisy) given modern food environments and the challenges presented by a culture of 12-hour days made easier by handheld food. Most of the fruit salad was eaten - lots of the bread was not. Trash cans were full later on of half-eaten sandwiches. A perfect backdrop to the session on food waste.

Rapporteur notes, Apr 21

Presentation:

5 minutes to talk about virtual community

website, powerpoint...

In computer lab for 2 hours

Last hour: discussion of the ideas and methods

Food going to be provided!!

2 pizzas (one vegetable one meat) + side salad

Let Prof. Song know anything you don’t want

---

Readings

Spinal cord injuries patients - try radical therapies

Can use hashtag Ferguson both either support or to critique of the protesters

When people use #Ferguson, do people feel empowered?

Other school campuses?

family more aware of STL at the time

Why did we use a place (Ferguson) as the index? Why not STL?

How does spatial proximity matter? (We are very close to Ferguson)

Relatives worry about safety & property

Social media (fb) as an echo chamber

With social media people can check other people/sources’ ideas

Or maybe not everyone

social media brings people who didn’t like to speak out to speak out more

radical comments compared to propaganda

Facebook is very much an echo chamber, Twitter not so much - hashtag

Getting paid for being memed

Does social media create more violence, or the reverse?

Authenticity and temporality of the posts

dead child’s twitter account

an artist’s live Instagram of an expedition he is not on

photoshop

Twitter, Facebook live are venues to bring the violence into mainstream/confront “sheltered whiteness"

visually based information

---

Discussion of the abstract:

Title

“:” is a common practice

Abstract

Foregrounding the people and subjects

Be explicit about how you want the readers to read the paper

Background info

Two forms of abstract writing: abstract before paper vs. abstract after paper

Be clear about the conclusion of the paper in the abstract

---

Gender and social media

Monica Lewinsky

Shaming made easier by Internet

Miller’s book

Like a textbook

To what extent does gender identity influence one’s experience in the online community?

Women apologizing in online forum for discussing their own experiences

"From the March for Science to an Abolitionist Science"

https://www.fromthesquare.org/march-science-abolitionist-science/#.WPvu3FPyuRu

"Science is not inherently “good” or “real”; its claims to and on reality are constructed like all forms of knowledge. It is often the handmaiden of violence and dispossession. Moving beyond generic defenses of science in an age of populist skepticism and backlash, this political moment actually requires an evaluation of different types of science and an excavation of their specific relationships to forms of power and exploitation. An abolitionist science could be used to do that important work."

Saw this piece that connected to the other piece I posted about decolonizing science. Also related to the march that went on this weekend.

inequality, violence and #

Chapters from How the world changed social media focus on gender relations, inequality, and politics respectively. For each part, authors define or frames the subject to a certain extent, from the culturally constructed gender to the ambiguous meanings of inequality, and politics in terms of instinct feeling and national scale. Chapters, on the one hand, articulate the similarities across various field sites on each topic, for the gender part, social media, especially those are more public, strengthen the existing gender relations when such media platforms are integrated into building relations that extend from offline society; for inequality, the social media does bring equality to disadvantaged communities, although demanding prerequisites; for the politics, the politics does remain a low-key affair in social media in different sites because of its unique nature and power relation it embedded. Differences or discontinuities do exist, on the other hand, because of the visceral world that frame the online or virtual world. The differences in the offline world between field sites deeply impact how people uses social media as well as how we evaluate social media. For the gender part, platforms like Google+ and Facebook can be both conservative and liberating based on the certain context they are used. For the inequality part, the evaluation of social media varies per different meanings of inequality in the different context, whether inequality is about monetary, cultural or something else, or inequality itself constitutes a hierarchical order when comparing inequality in different states.

The # article that conducts the internet (related) ethnography focuses on two cases that under the Black Lives Matter #, showing the complexity when choosing # as a research field, which is deeply influenced by different context and different users. The # “culture” relates to the inequality discussion in the previous chapter, denoting the multiple meaning and level of inequality. Social media, in this sense, contributes to bringing equality, when enabled by the spread of technologies like networks and smartphones. Contrary to the argument in the book about the absence of politics in social media, we find the increasing appearance of politics in social media, at least in the US, especially since the absurd presidential campaign, when politicians massively used social media.

Another question is about the solution to #, in terms of the use of violence in both social media and the real world. Does social media helps to construct a better world by displaying uncomfortable violence (from Michael Brown to David Dao), or it encourages violence both in the internet and the offline world.

Reading reflections, Apr. 20th

Both of this week’s readings are relevant to the discussion of the relationship between social media and social inequality. In #Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography and the racial politics of social media in the United States, the authors wrote about the “hashtag activism” on twitter regarding the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. They analyzed how and why social media as exemplified by twitter became a novel force in social activism. Firstly, smartphones together with social media have created a form of “informal journalism,” as they enabled people including the marginalized and racialized populations to document the incidents independently of the media outlets. Secondly, in the particular case of twitter, the hashtag has functions similar to the library call numbers in the sense that they both serve as a quick retrieval system and summarize the topic or intention of the tweets. An extra piece of evidence I have for the latter function of the hashtag is that, some people even use hashtags in similar ways when they post on social media that don’t support the hashtag retrieval function, and hence the only reason they use hashtag is to “performatively frame what these comments are ‘really about,’” as phrased by the authors. Thirdly, Twitter in particular enables users around the world to feel united, or at least related, across space at a given time and feel like participating in the event in real time. But as the authors noted, it is a question how much this helps besides providing the users with excitement and feelings of “eventfulness”.

Chapter 9 of How the World Changed Social Media discusses the relationship between inequality and social media. The author introduced two opposite views on how social media shapes inequality: the first view is that the privileged people have more resources even online thanks to education and networking, and the second view is that social media enables less privileged people to have access to resources. Personally I do think that less privileged people are able to gain considerable resources from social media in the form of information. But it is also important to notice that the social networks online can be as exclusive as offline, thereby limiting social mobility and the equality of resources obtained by different classes of people.

Bonilla and Rosa’s discussion about whether hashtags can serve as a field site is helping me work through my research for a paper I’m working on for a different class that relies heavily on twitter posts. Thinking about hashtags as a “semiotic indexing system” really gets at the extent to which hashtags create an interpretive frame. In Tamil Nadu, for example, the linear narrative being collectively produced in the aftermath of the Jallikattu protests is being produced by “indexing” or recasting water events alongside the now rescinded ban to render water the primary site of contestation between Tamil and Indian identities.  This “indexing” characterization of hashtags is the mechanism by which people don’t necessarily collude, but still collectively create linear narratives by strategically including and excluding certain stories.

The indexing in social media can create oppressive hegemonic narratives but can also facilitate counterhegemonic discourse. A couple days ago I read a paper on the mobilization of popular support via social media during the so-called “anti-corruption” movement in India in 2011. The author uses the phrase the “twittering classes” to describe how social media mobilization is emancipatory in some respects, but ultimately still another example of Partha Chatterjee’s conception of a “civil society” distinct from a “political society” that excludes the rural and urban poor. Bonilla and Rosa’s fleshed out discussion of the participatory politics of social media fit well with very informative but sometimes thin UCL readings over the last few weeks. Every chapter has emphasized the multi-dimensionality of social media and how it always works in conjunction with social structures to amplify or undermine (or some combination of both) existing patterns of behavior.

Also, this footnote reminded me of our class discussion about the ethics of “virtual” research.

“Although it is important to debate the ethical concerns surrounding “Twitter research,” we would caution against viewing these as entirely new, or disconnected from previous methodologi- cal and ethical debates in social science research. The fact is, these issues speak to long-standing anthropological concerns regard- ing “misinformed consent” through either a user agreement or a signed institutional review board form (du Toit 1980; Sankar 2004; Wax 1980), the implications of using “naturally occurring” versus “elicited” communication (Dobrin 2008; Wolfson 1976), and the larger question of the general role and purpose of the “native voice” in anthropological texts (Bonilla n.d.; Trouillot 2003). Engagement with these questions in the context of digital platforms should thus not be set apart from discussions of “analog” methods and ethical concerns.”

Ferguson reading

#Ferguson
Bonilla and Rosa's article "#Ferguson" discussed the use of hashtags as an online form of activism and how twitter was particularly suited for this new form of activism. During the Ferguson event and in the aftermath, hashtags provided a quick retrieval system for people who were looking for the most up to date information. In this case #Ferguson actually provided up to date news on ongoing events then even the news. In addition to helping to keep a wider audience up to date on the events, #Ferguson also served the significance of an utterance online and ultimately drew global attention to the events. Bonilla and Rosa felt that twitter was a better platform than other social media platforms such as facebook because twitter is a platform that is very immediate and thus in the moment. Activists who posted with #ferguson or #STL  almost felt as if they themselves were participating themselves. I thought this was a very interesting point. I personally do not use twitter so I do not know too much but it makes sense that twitter is a platform that gives people a more directly involved feeling that facebook. However, with the constant changes to social media facebook also has some new features that have created interesting new ways for people to participate in protests no matter their physical location. During the DAPL protest last fall, a rumor quickly spread that local police were using "check ins" on facebook in order to track DAPL protestors. In response, 1 million people on facebook "checked in" in order to confuse local police and also show support for the DAPL protest when they could not physically be there themselves.

Though some people believe that hashtag activism is not the same as "real" activisim, I think that the new possibilities that online platforms have created for activism are quite significant. In the case of the DAPL, protest though it would have been nice if 1 million people could have shown their support in person it is simply impossible to expect 1 million people to drop their lives and fly somewhere for a protest for many different reasons. Furthermore, online activism can also provide a platform through which activists contest different racial stereotypes without having to fear deadly violence that might occur were they to protest in person. Overall, I think that online activism is not necessarily equivalent to "real" activism, but that instead online platforms allow for the creation of new forms of activism that can also have significant impacts.

#Ferguson was a really interesting article for me, because I’m interested in how activism and technology may both complement or impede each other. In #Ferguson, Bonilla et al writes about how activism on Twitter in the last 5 years have manifested, especially for protests in Ferguson and subsequent events of police brutality. I thought it was notable how Bonilla differentiated Twitter as an apt conduit for activism because of its specific features such as the hashtag. With tags such as #Ferguson, people can look at what others are saying about Ferguson in real time, and this allows for users to feel that they are participating in real time rather than posting and being done with it, like on Facebook or Instagram. It moves much faster than Facebook or Instagram, and is more permanent than Snapchat, which is why it’s perfect for discussion and protests.

To me, because I don’t have a Twitter and had always had the mindset “Why do I need Twitter? It’s like Facebook without pictures”, it was illuminating how Twitter was formed for a different purpose. One thing I did want to know more about that Bonilla et al didn’t discuss, especially because I’m not familiar with Twitter, was what is the demographic on Twitter? I would think that it’s younger people, but then Trump is all up in it, and so are many celebrities. This article also made me try signing up for Twitter after reading this article! (But then I was overwhelmed and deleted it again. Starting a new technology by yourself is scary and definitely not wise right before finals time).

Twitter is actually faster than news sites now, to the point that we now see live feeds on Twitter discussions during news broadcasts! I’m skeptical of those news sites—why can’t they get their own news and who knows if the posts are reliable—but it shows how present Twitter is. I think that the way that tweets are now ways for people to see exactly what others are saying about something is indicative of our feedback culture, where we want to know the reviews and opinions of other people for everything before forming our own opinion. That’s why in Ebay, we only trust things that have had reviews written by real people, or there’s Yelp, or RateMyProfessor, or many others. I think it could also be a response to media being controlled largely by news organizations, and Twitter is a way of democratizing information and bringing issues that news sources do not mention into the spotlight. In fact, one of the hashtags that Bonilla et al discusses, #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, is a direct criticism of the biases coloring the coverage by the media.