For this week, I was particularly interested in some of what E. Gabriella Coleman talked about in "Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media." Most importantly, her brief discussion of "selfhood" and youth and digital media. Coleman refers to digital media affecting "selfhood" as, "...it would be a mistake to overlook how digital media have cultivated new modes of communication and selfhood; reorganized social perceptions and forms of self-awareness; and established collective interests, institutions, and life projects." This struck me as something I had known for a while but don't think about very often--how digital media, and social media specifically, is often a reflection, obsession, and alteration of one's "selfhood."
Social media provides a platform to obsessively know what is going on with other people's lives--friends, colleagues, classmates... A "friend" on Facebook is in no way the same definition as a "friend" in the non-virtual world. You consume photos, videos, and statuses by these various "friends" while you output your own photos, video, and statuses. Your name, written out, becomes associated with the variety of things you put out, while you associate your "friends" with the variety of things that they put out. With my use of Facebook, I think my awareness goes up of a variety things--from politics, to other people's life, to random news stories, etc. I often question, though, if this increased awareness is being accomplished in a healthy way.
Social media provides a platform for a person to selectively put out content that will be associated with their name and photo; this allows them to cultivate an online personality that represents their non-virtual self in a way that they choose. I have noticed people use this advantage, if you will, of social media to craft their online selves to fit a group or interest or style or personality perfectly. I can often hear my friends or other students go to another's Instagram page and make snap judgements. Immediately, I feel as though making snap judgements via social media is wrong. But at times, I think about the autonomy of the non-virtual person putting out specific content to share with others. People, more often that not, selectively provide just a sliver of their complicated lives through social media.
Coleman says, "One recent collaborative project points an ethnographic lens at the intersection between digital media and American youth, including the changing dynamics of friendship, the reconfigurations between publicity and privacy..." Social media allows a part of one's life to become somewhat public, and this causes a construction of self to be very different than one's non-virtual self. I personally go through varying feelings when thinking about this. I have social media myself, and I am a culprit of this behavior, and I don't think it is necessarily bad. But if I take step back and look at the variety of impacts this construction of self can have, it seems like an unhealthy habit that a large majority of the world is contributing to. I'm sure there's a nice middle ground that allows these actions to be neutral, but when I scroll through my Facebook feed, it can be hard to understand that.
Social media provides a platform to obsessively know what is going on with other people's lives--friends, colleagues, classmates... A "friend" on Facebook is in no way the same definition as a "friend" in the non-virtual world. You consume photos, videos, and statuses by these various "friends" while you output your own photos, video, and statuses. Your name, written out, becomes associated with the variety of things you put out, while you associate your "friends" with the variety of things that they put out. With my use of Facebook, I think my awareness goes up of a variety things--from politics, to other people's life, to random news stories, etc. I often question, though, if this increased awareness is being accomplished in a healthy way.
Social media provides a platform for a person to selectively put out content that will be associated with their name and photo; this allows them to cultivate an online personality that represents their non-virtual self in a way that they choose. I have noticed people use this advantage, if you will, of social media to craft their online selves to fit a group or interest or style or personality perfectly. I can often hear my friends or other students go to another's Instagram page and make snap judgements. Immediately, I feel as though making snap judgements via social media is wrong. But at times, I think about the autonomy of the non-virtual person putting out specific content to share with others. People, more often that not, selectively provide just a sliver of their complicated lives through social media.
Coleman says, "One recent collaborative project points an ethnographic lens at the intersection between digital media and American youth, including the changing dynamics of friendship, the reconfigurations between publicity and privacy..." Social media allows a part of one's life to become somewhat public, and this causes a construction of self to be very different than one's non-virtual self. I personally go through varying feelings when thinking about this. I have social media myself, and I am a culprit of this behavior, and I don't think it is necessarily bad. But if I take step back and look at the variety of impacts this construction of self can have, it seems like an unhealthy habit that a large majority of the world is contributing to. I'm sure there's a nice middle ground that allows these actions to be neutral, but when I scroll through my Facebook feed, it can be hard to understand that.
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