“Gemma is at the fox, getting ‘slizzard’”. “Rhys is eating steak”. “Jess is cooking dinner for her man”. “Hannah doesn’t care!”
Our life, as suggested in this week’s reading by Mark Deuze, is now a media life (Deuze, 2011). There is no longer a clear separation of the two. The iPhone plague which has now swept our society relates explicitly to another theory offered this week known as the Age of the Thumb (Bell, 2006). The manner in which we can now carry the internet around with us in our pockets has lead to social interactions being documented on social networking sites, instead of being developed face-to-face. People don’t live in the moment, they live online. An explanation for this was offered in the tutorial, people think tagging themselves at hip clubs with 20 friends makes them seem cooler. Once again social capital is at the root of this behaviour (Pearson, 2009).
I can relate to wanting to increase my social capital. I only chose the very best photos to be my display picture. I untag myself if the photo is hideous. I even occasionally complain about hangovers so people know I had a big night prior. Though as my pockets are iPhone free, I must say I'm good in comparison to others. Its basic common decency to look at a person when you’re talking with them, though with the iPhone and the constant documenting of your life conversations now occur with heads down and thumbs moving to spell out a new endeavour to gain social capital.
Reference
- Bell, G. (2006). The Age of the Thumb: a Cultural Reading of Mobile Technologies from Asia. Knowledge, Technology, & Policy, Summer 2006, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 41-57. Available online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/dthwalh3muxdtrdu/
- Deuze, M. (2011). Media Life. In Media, Culture & Society, Volume 33, issue 1, pp. 137-148 . Available on CMD
- Pearson, E. (2009). All the World Wide Web’s a stage: the Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks. First Monday, volume 14, Number 3. Available online at: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2162/2127
(Video)
- footynutguy. " YouTube - Facebook Song ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSnXE2791yg>.
(Hyperlinks)
- "iPhone Sales Statistics Australia | Nokia Sales Statistics." The Age - Business, World & Breaking News | Melbourne, Australia. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/apple-threatens-nokias-dominance-20100521-w0f7.html
- "Incompatible Browser | Facebook." Incompatible Browser | Facebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919
A great post Hannah, even though we all want to pretend that we never purposely try to look cooler online, we all do it in some way or the other. And it´s funny to think about how it seems like we react to people, (especially on Facebook) that never updates their status, checks in anywhere or in general are not very active, instead of the people that are constantly telling us where they are and what they do.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I am definitely guilty of de-tagging myself from time to time to keep hideous photos off my page! Facebook has most definitely taken narcissism to a whole new level. If you were to say 5 years ago that people would be documenting their breakfasts and broadcasting it worldwide, people would have thought you to be crazy, or extremely boring, or probably a mix of both! I wonder what the next craze will be, looking 5 years into the future?
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