Interesting Article about Virtual Counseling

I found this during break, enjoy.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/avatar-will-see-you-now

Going back to racial stratification...

https://www.gov.ca.gov/docs/AB_176_Veto_Message.pdf

This news story is more relevant to the first part of our class, but I still thought it was a really interesting practical application of some of the ideas we've discussed.

A few of my Facebook friends in California posted about this decision by California governor Jerry Brown to veto a bill that would have required several state agencies to add demographic subcategories for people identifying as Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The rationale he gave was that he was "wary of the ever growing desire to stratify. Dividing people into ethnic or other subcategories may yield more information, but not necessarily greater wisdom about what actions should follow. To focus just on ethnic identity may not be enough." This is similar to what we've said in class about the questionable utility of racial identification and how such identification further reifies the existence/biological basis of race. At the same time, many of my Facebook friends posting about this story disagreed with the decision and thought it was a suppression and undermining of Asian identity. I thought it was really interesting how this topic of race was understood so differently in academic versus sociopolitical contexts.

Virtual Ethnography Readings

Our readings this week examined how the virtual/online world interacts with the “actual” world, and the ethnographic concerns that are unique to studying such a culture. 

Tom Boellstorff, in his ethnography of Second Life, took a somewhat radical approach by studying that virtual world “in its own terms,” without attempting to verify or examine people’s actual identities, relationships, etc. For example, a single avatar, though it may be controlled by multiple people, was taken as a single individual because that’s consistent with how other users experienced it. I’m not entirely sure I understand Boellstorff justification for this. He says that while virtual and actual worlds are both real and draw largely upon each other, there is still a gap between them, which is I assume why he chose this self-contained methodology. His discussion of “virtual” and “techne” also reminded me of science fiction’s dilemma of what qualifies as technology. In a sense, all symbolic representation and even culture is virtual because it allows us to interface with objects that are not strictly physical. I think this will be important to keep in mind in our own ethnographies because it can be very tempting to conflate the offline with the “real.” 

Hine’s chapter touches upon many of the methodological topics that Boellstorff mentions, though the scope is more general and assumes more mobility and connection between online and offline worlds. Along with participant observation, interviews and other traditional ethnographic methods, Hine also mentions how social media analytics and similar data can contribute to virtual anthropology. This was an interesting point that I hadn’t previously thought about and it just adds to the myriad of additional considerations that the study of online culture seems to require. As thought-provoking as these theoretical, methodological discussions are, it seems to me like virtual anthropology, like all anthropology, can’t describe or take into account every aspect of the object of its study, and will need to accept certain limitations so as to create a useful ethnography. I would definitely like to see more example of how different researchers actually do these negotiations and compromises in practice.

Reading Response 10/28

I was really interested this week with Hine's discussion of ethnography on the Internet as a study of the embedded, embodied, and everyday. I had never thought before of the idea of the field site being a point of contention for anthropologists, and I really like the idea of an a field site as a more amorphous, abstract connection between between people that does not really have a concrete place to point to. In referring to Amit's works, she claims that "it has increasingly been recognized that the field stie is an artful construction rather than something one simply "finds". This recognition opens up a space for discussion of the extent to which the ethnographer exerts agency over the field she chooses to explore." This is very reminiscent to me of something we spoke of in my class on landscape studies with Professor Frachetti. Instead of talking of places, with concrete boundaries that you either physically exist within or outside, we now have the ability to talk about unique networks of people across space and time and focus on particular "internet" behaviors for which we have no frame of reference in the non-virtual world. No longer are we talking specifically about certain people in certain places; with technology, we are able to avail ourselves of an entirely new body of knowledge regarding human behavior. In fact, this chapter makes a point out saying that one has to be more certain of what wants to study in order to flesh out a high quality product, and goes into an interesting consideration of the ramifications of being a social scientist and necessarily keeping a certain degree of public persona in order to glean information as a participant observer, avoiding the guise of a voyeur, which Hine seems to think of as inadequate anthropology.

In Boelstorff's Coming of Age in a Second Life, the author embarks on an emic study describing the ins and outs of Second Life by using this platform as a subject of study in its own right. Interesting to him are the ideas, ways and techniques with which people create their own alternative realities inside of a second "virtual" space, an alternative to when people were solely linked together virtually. He points to the fact that previous studies studied virtual worlds within their "real-world" counterparts and points to 1) the need to study these worlds separately and 2) the need to study them, as Geertz puts it, as "highly particular." Finally, by paying attention to the more mundane aspects of second life creation, we can achieve greater insight into the internal mechanisms and desires affecting decision making, as opposed to solely being events occurring alongside "real life." Is it possible behavior on one of these platforms is indicative of desires, cares, and worries of people outside them?

Coming of Age in Second Life

Coming of Age in Second Life was not at all what I expected. I really thought I was going to read an ethnography about Facebook and relationships built on social media... or something. After reading the preface and first chapter, I was really excited to read more of the book. But as I got towards the end of chapter 1, I was a little less excited. The first pages reminded me of one of the questions we ask at the beginning of my social theory course: Who is the author arguing against? What is the author arguing for? It seemed the author was arguing against non-believers of his ethnographic experiment both scholars and non-scholars; plus trying to convince his reader that Virtual Worlds were/are very valuable places to study that tell us about the human condition and human kind.  I came to this conclusion partly because of the way that he positioned his work to famous but older anthropology scholars that have shaped the field: Boas, Malinowski, Evans Pritchard, Mead, etc. It felt like it was almost trying too hard to convince the reader that “Hey! This is really anthropology! See! Look at all the applicable theory and methods I'm using”. However, I’ve learned that you can relate a theory to anything. Anyways, I would like to discuss in class his use of classic anthropology theory and philosophers to frame his book (Chapter 2). The discussion in chapter two on the emergence and history of virtual words was valuable. I think he could have gotten into the gaming vs. online community discussion, as I still don’t know where to situate Second Life in that dichotomy. The methods chapter (Chapter 3) was fascinating on the ways in which he conducted his research in this virtual world. I do appreciate how he grounds his work in traditional anthropological methods but this again connects to my original point about proving his book as an anthropological venture rather than letting it be anthropology. 

The connection between last weeks discussion of science fiction and virtual humans may be an interesting connection between our last two classes. I read a few of the additional readings as well which I don't have the time to summarize here. I found the Nardi and Coleman articles most interesting and would like to compare them to Boellstorff's work and methods. 

Cuddlr / Spoonr

Around this time last year an app called "Cuddlr" was released, which purpoted to be like Tinder, but for platonic cuddling instead of hookups. I found out about this app when it returned last month after a shutdown in March 2015, now rebranded as "Spoonr".

Now, I don't personally use apps like Tinder but I can at least understand their usefulness. Matchmaking can often be quite complex and such applications greatly streamline the process while simultaneously expanding the potential number of matches, as exemplified by Tinder's crucial "swipe" feature, which sets up a way to grant more matchmaking power to the user with greater efficiency (as opposed to other, older matchmaking services which relied on algorithms to gauge the compatibility of users based on their profiles). Tinder is strong in its simplicity; in a way it's almost like automating the process of connecting with people, but not actually automatic.

However, the idea of an app for cuddling and platonic touching seems more strange to me. A hug is a much simpler thing to do, and I can't imagine there to be a sufficient number of people so deprived of human contact that they would need a form of social media to automate the process of hugging. I also think that doing so raises concerns about the commodification of physical contact or may even cheapen the significance of it.

Is this app created in reaction to the role of online communities in human lives? Is it yet another way to extend a formerly real-life-only activity into the online world, just as matchmaking services and social networks did before, or is it an answer to how the growing usage of purely online interaction fail to provide sufficient connectedness and intimancy? Or is it both?

Digital Death

Social media is very much a part of my everyday. On any given day I have probably scrolled through my Facebook, posted a few happy birthdays, checked my Instagram, and snapchatted my friends. Growing up in the so-called Age of Technology, all of these habits seems perfectly natural, an integral part of my life. But what about death?

The question of what happens to our social media accounts after we die is not a new one. It is one Facebook has even specifically addressed, by adding the option to memorialize someone's page if they die. This adds certain restrictions to who can post and view a profile, as well as adding the word "Remembering" before a person's name. Another option, of course, is to delete the account. Or you could leave it up as it normally is, which might lead to certain problems. I cannot imagine how upsetting it would be to see the account of a dead loved one vandalized by posting nasty things to their wall. Or worse, someone could take over the account and pretend to be that loved one. I have heard of close relatives posting on the account as if they were the deceased. While I don't want to take away from anyone's personal response to grief, this does strike me as a little creepy.

Regardless of what we decide to do with our accounts, they do provide some aspect of ourselves that lives on after death, a semi-historical record. In the future, we may develop some more etiquette in response to these situations. Social media could be used to comfort the bereaved, by offering a way for others to reach out as well as a space for remembrance. Personally, I remain skeptical. Though we have replaced many formerly face-to-face interactions with digital ones, the most difficult times call for something stronger than a sympathetic wall post.

23andMe in the News

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/23andme-relaunches-consumer-dna-testing-service-n448836

   I saw this article the other day and found it interesting to actually see 23andMe in the news after discussing it in class at the beginning of the semester. They are now allowed to offer some of their genetic testing again, but only to see if people are carriers for certain genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. They still cannot test for predisposition to certain diseases such as heart disease because lifestyle factors are many times more important than the genetics. I think these are important tests for people to have access to, but I wonder what the advantage is to doing the tests through this company versus having a doctor, for example an obgyn, prescribe the test.  

Internet Identitiy

The concept of “field site” receives a lot of attention in Tom Boellstorff and Christine Hines accounts of how to do ethnographies either on the Internet or with an Internet component. Boellstorff seems to feel strongly that an online community can be a contained field site, without taking into account the “actual” world at all. Hines, on the other hand, frames online communities as “actor networks”, which mediate interactions with the outside world. Both approaches have merit in my opinion. The interesting part about the Internet is that we can live in it, as many people involved in Second Life seem to do, or we can live with it. In either case, the presence of an online element in our daily lives is significant to our culture. The Internet has changed how we actualize ourselves, by providing us options outside of the constraints of the physical body.

In Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, he makes it very explicit that his research did not concern itself with the “resident’s” offline lives. As a result of this lack of inquiry into the person sitting at the monitor, all his anecdotes are touched with the awareness that the avatar may in no way represent the person or persons talking through it. I found this to be very intriguing, particularly as an explanation for why a person might want to immerse themselves into a virtual world at all. Though Boellstorff describes a few special features which demarcate the SL world from our physical reality, such as flight and teleportation, the most significant enhancement it provided seemed to be a completely mutable identity.

In Kenji Yoshino’s book Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights, Yoshino describes the difference between a mutable and immutable identity. Immutable identities, like race, can be the most challenging to live with precisely because they are so permanent. Identities like gender, which we know to be mutable, can also feel similarly burdensome because of their perceived immutability. A virtual world provides a space where none of that holds true. Though the options are of course limited by the scope of the virtual world, a person can chose aspects of their avatar regardless of their actual identity. Furthermore, these traits can be altered. This experience seems remarkably freeing in a world where society places so much value on the aspects of ourselves we cannot change. With their avatar, a person may chose to engage in discussions about politics, sex, or any topic in the world, but in a way they never have before. I would be interested in the anthropological and psychological potential of this aspect of virtual worlds. The fact that it isn’t addressed in Boelstorff’s particular book just shows how much more room there is to explore in the anthropology of the virtual.

Reflection on Coming of Age in Second Life

     In Tom Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life, Boellstorff chronicles a history of virtual worlds that have existed for many years, long before the technology of Second Life or other programs came into existence. I found it interesting how he discussed writing and the media as a form of virtual worlds in the past. Especially in his example of pen pals, it is easy to see how a virtual world was created, much like those now created online, for people who otherwise would never be able to have a relationship could interact. I don’t think I would have come to the realization that pen pals were a type of virtual world without Boellstorff’s suggestion because virtual worlds are very technologically based in my mind. But I came to see how the definition of technology can be broadened and therefore keep that link intact in my mind. I realized this with Aristotle’s definition that “the goal of techne was thus to create what nature found impossible to accomplish” (pg. 55). With that definition, I can more easily visualize how more activities (like the press) can be seen as technology and creating a virtual world.    

     In addition to finding it interesting to realize that virtual worlds have existed for much longer than computers have been around, I found it very intriguing how much Second Life mimics the physical world in that people can make real US dollars from selling things in the game and that people buy real estate, form communities, attend meetings, etc. I think it is incredible that some residents, like Fran, use Second Life to form support communities and connect with others dealing with the same illness or disease. It’s incredible that with technology these patients can still easily be together, even though it could be challenging to get them all in the same room in the physical world. I was also fascinated by the fact that fundraisers occurred within the realm of Second Life, to raise funds for things like Parkinson’s or the American Cancer Society. As someone who is deeply involved with Dance Marathon, a huge fundraiser, on campus, I found it really interesting to imagine what it would be like to plan a fundraiser in a virtual world.

     It is because of these activities that I agree with the author that virtual worlds are not post-human like some suggest. Everything that goes on in Second Life is very human. The residents are connecting with other people and creating new relationships that they would not be otherwise able to create. I think they are trying to become more human and connected by joining a virtual world like Second Life and not trying to move beyond their humanness. Being a resident of Second Life is simply adding to the residents’ life and personhood. Like the author quoted John Campbell saying, the “online and offline experiences blend into a single, albeit multifaceted, narrative of life” (pg. 61).

The New Frontier

Our readings for this week introduce us to the study of the online world. These readings give us a foundation on which to begin understanding the space created by new technologies and the emergent social structures and cultures that are produced in/through/with the use of this new virtual terrain.

The chapter from Christine Hine's book that we read, 3: Ethnographic Strategies for the Embedded, Embodied, Everyday Internet, gives ethnographers more to think about when considering research about the internet. She challenges anthropologists to stay true to a holistic view by being open to the "unanticipated aspects of meaning making". Hine looks at the way that the internet complicates the traditional conception of an ethnographic field site. She suggests that researchers adopt an understanding of mobile and multi-sited fields. Hine also addresses the question of how involved should a researcher get. In anthropology there have been questions about the benefits and harms of "going native" and thereby losing objectivity; however, Hine argues that learning-by-doing is advantageous for research of the internet because in taking an autoethnograpic approach, it "allows for the very individualized nature of engagement with a reality constituted though various forms of mediated and localized face-to-face interaction and material context to be explored in a far greater degree of depth than can be achieved by asking other participants for retrospective accounts alone or from simply observing what they do". Research of the internet challenges traditional forms and strategies of ethnographic research and forces anthropologists to push their openness and explore the uniqueness of new spaces created online. Tom Boellstroff's ethnography of Second Life is, as he argues, entirely human. He is concerned with the ways in which virtual worlds encapsulate human culture. Boellstroff builds off of Castronova' definition of a "virtual world": any computer-generated physical space...that can be experienced by man people at once; places, inhabited by people, enabled by online technologies. He is concerned with cybersociality and the creation of a virtual third place. He builds off of traditional, foundational anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz, and argues that, in the same vein as Hine, the everyday life of this virtual space should be paid attention to as a product and producer of human culture.

I think that these readings are very helpful as we begin our second ethnographic assignment. It forces us to think like anthropologists, removing ourselves from our own biases and understandings of what culture should look like, and forces us to explore a new space on the terms of those who occupy it. What is interesting is how this space, this form of interaction, offline to online, from one site to another, complicates the practice of participant observation. To understand the holistic experience of virtual worlds, it seems that it is necessary to become apart of it. Is this really research or does it cross into the territory of a personal memoir/exposé? Is the necessarily a bad thing to have the enthographer so engrained in the process? I don't think its that big of an issue, but as always there needs to be a balance of voices and views.

Thoughts on Health, Social Marketing, and Such

I would really be interested to hear people's comments on this. Has anybody noticed an increase in the frequency of tv radio ads trying to curb risky behaviors such as drunk driving and tobacco smoking? You know, the one where the guy tries to go in and buy a pack, but he doesn't have enough so he "pays" by pulling out one of his teeth, hence the "Real Cost" that the Food and Drug Administration have been disseminating. These have always been around in the past, but their number seems to have been increasing as of lately, and now they are appearing as Hulu, Netflix, and as YouTube ads, surefire signs that the messages are intended to target millennials. Tell me if you guys have heard the various ads from the FDA, like the one with the happy sounding girl saying, "I always just bum cigarettes, so it never costs me anything" followed by a stern voice staying "tobacco will cost you" (I'm definitely paraphrasing here). I know that I have been hearing these things with an increasing frequency and it's making me wonder why. Is it that professionals involved in social marketing have tried to tap into our constant wiring-in, our technological savvy as an aspect of contemporary life in an attempt to nip risky behavior among young adults in the bud, or is this just a new strategy aimed entirely at a population which is gradually adopting more and more technology into daily practice? What is the result of hearing a campaign like this over the radio, where it's mostly just a voiceover talking about "why it doesn't cost me a thing" as opposed to seeing it on screen, where we can see someone ripping out their tooth? I know that whenever I see either of those methods, it always makes me think for a while, which to a certain extent I think is the goal. Social marketing is emerging as a new tool to engage people with for desired outcomes of health and wellness- the Get Yourself Tested (GYT) and Above the Influence campaigns (although the latter is entirely defunct as far as I know as more therapeutics effects of cannabis are reported) are a testament to that. I wonder if we will start to see newer methods which engage our population in ways we haven't yet considered, and what health topic or issue will be deemed salient enough to warrant the latest social marketing campaign.

Reading response, ethnography in virtual worlds

So far the ethnography Coming of Age in Second Life is a pretty fascinating read. In particular, I liked how Boellstorff situated his research within the confines of the online world itself, and therefore aligned his point of view staunchly with the perspective of the users of Second Life. In contrast to previous, similar studies he mentions, Boellstorff explicitly made sure to avoid the usage of information regarding his subjects' real-world lives, whereas the previous studies examined online communities through the framework of the real world. By keeping virtual and real details separate and by using his study's subject as its own framework, Boellstorff was able to do a better-informed analysis of how users interacted and created environments and personal realities within Second Life, unadultereated by real-life details which may have influenced his interpretation; e.g. a singular male avatar could actually be controlled by a female user or even many users, but Boellstorff's study specifically focused on how that avatar interacted within Second Life, as a singular male.

The reading written by Hine touched upon broader concepts of research methodology and how they might be applied to an online environment, which is quite different from the physical locations visited by ethnographers historically. However, viewing the internet as ubiquitous and embedded messes with one's sense of place; therefore it is necessary to think of it as yet another field site. To explain how this is possible, Hine cites Amit and Cohen, positing that a field site does not necessarily have to be an actual place. What's important is how the boundaries are set; in this way a field site is more constructed by the researcher than found. In this way, we can construct a new kind of field site when anthropologically researching online environments: rather than studying people in a specific localized place, the online field site encompasses people that are connected together online. This network is what matters in internet anthropology; the actual location of the subjects is irrelevant, and the point of interest is how they connect relative to each other.