BLOG #1
As technology continues to evolve and as communication capabilities are additionally innovated, the streamlining of social media will functionally streamline human communication by fulfilling humanity’s inherent wishes. Though contemporary technology shapes as much as international politics and worldwide commerce, their current state and future innovation is contingent on the culture of those creators who wish allow computation to do what we used to. This intersection of technological determinism and social construction, where the question of “did the chicken or the egg come first” arises shall first be addressed by contrasting human communication during the times of non-wireless communication and the 20th-21st century advent of widespread internet access and telecommunication.
From a technological determinism perspective, it is very true to say that then-current technology of say, the early 1930s, allowed for a Postal Service that shipped throughout the countryside via train and highly constrained the synchronous capabilities of communication. The newspaper sections that allowed for responses from the readers also faced this asynchronous challenge, the spatial dislocation of two parties always impeded upon the rate of information exchange, until technology eliminated spatial disparities. But one can’t attribute scientific method and corporate strategizing to what “one sometimes finds, what one is not looking for.” These were Alexander Fleming’s exact words when recollecting his accidental discovery of the first antibiotic in 1928, Penicillin. The creation of phone lines, the government funding and research for ARPANET, https’s, and also modern social media platforms were not serendipitous creations that displayed a providential interference outside of humanity’s scope of creation for a discursion into a better society. These inventions and future technological advances are preordained and desired innovation for mankind and landscape of human interaction. From this historical perspective of mankind’s technology and its influence (giving or receiving), the factor of human design having a huge role to play in technology highlights the truth that we cannot be shaped by that by what we create.
If society shapes technology due to technology’s affordances being contingent on pre-existing, just less efficient forms of communication (or remediation), how can this be true when considering the adverse effects of social media on such a high number of individuals in the realm of what it is intended to aid which is communication? Telephones kept people inside and limited the amount of face-to-face social interaction they could have met if not occupied with a singular conversation with lower degree of media richness. Convergence poses customers with the benefits of convenience, short-term ease in exchange for what some argue to be long-term detriments in mental health and relational wellbeing. And if technology determinism only aids one’s perspective in social media by telling us that humanity is doomed in the systems of technology, why don’t the companies creating these products go out of business, rather than booming with the release of new media? Social construction does not belittle technology, rather it points the finger of blame at us– the consumers– and the designers– the companies– for the choices we make as a global community and harm ourselves by conveniencing the present at the cost of our future.
In the modern day where constant, widespread communication is possible through mobile phones and social media, why is it that “loneliness is rising?” If technology that was designed to aid us in great ways succeeds in doing so while simultaneously harming us in unforeseen ways, doesn’t technological determinism stand as victor in the debate of social media perspectives? If one refers to the complaints of the 1950s when the telephone first became a household product, did the social paranoia and critiques of the radically changing communication mediums leave a genuine mark on the future of technology? Did society protest and revert to face-to-face interactions and nice, handwritten sentiments? Not at all. Big companies and gentlepeople in their garages strived to change the world with their inventions and introductions to moreover streamline communication. And the reason the world changed is because customers wanted these products, people wanted smaller, more mobile phones. Convergence of social factors may pose sacrifices for one’s medium for communication, but there will always be attributes from the affordances of innovative technologies. People may learn lessons in their own lives and advocate for reform in the amount of investment the youth puts into their Instagram and Snap time to save them from the woes of their own experience, but the kids want it and taking it away from them is a form of social control no one has the right to judge or enforce.
Blog #2
Prompt 3: Think about the concepts of economic, social, and cultural capital and digital inequities. How are these signified online (e.g., SNS profile, blog)? Make sure to use examples to support your ideas.
In the post-“digital immigrant” era, the socioeconomic future for “cyber-children,” the Generation-Z population that is born into “digital nativity” will be dependent on the economic resources available to those based on their families or providers. Those in born into a low economic class will subsequently have vast limitations in social and cultural capital as socialization trends more and more towards digital interaction. For example, a professor with a hopeful prospect may advise a colleague of theirs with a recommendation to assist their student in acquiring employment after graduating from grad school. First off, could students without computers (that must be acquired by those with presumptuously higher economic capital) even apply to college? Or even complete assignments in public high schools that are listed on the internet? These educational limitations posed against those who are born into lower socioeconomic backgrounds display the digital inequity that perpetuates the classist inequities of the capitalist state. Those born poor stay poor, those in the middle don’t fall or rise, and those at the top stay at the top.
Blog #3
Prompt 1: Reflect on the art and cultural production in the era of social media. Locate an artistic endeavor reliant on social media. Identify the form of art practice (deviant art, appropriation, new forms/methods, artistic promotion/distribution) and discuss how elements of social media make the art possible.
IN the era of social media, the Web 2.0 soaked endeavors within the systems of the art world offer a more co-creational world off art that is dislike the traditional standing of mass media in art. I will examine Film; cinema in its entirety and how its current state is entirely dependent on the influx of participation of consumers of media on the internet. Film as a whole medium of entertainment and so much more could many of its form into the practices of ArtDeviant, appropriation (Bandersnatch?), and revitalization of the form. In a world of social media where user voices dictate the product they receive, such is the case with Sonic The Hedgehog film that released Feb. 14th, wherein backlash from the internet forced the production to drastically alter the design of the titular character. Netflix and recommendations get into the sphere of Big Data, as does Amazon Prime and their recommendation algorithm that take into account your purchase history.
Blog (of George) 