At the Click of a Button
After reading the first chapter in Nancy K. Baym's "Personal Connections in the Digital Age," I haven't quite decided how I feel about digital media. On the one hand, I feel particularly inclined to defend its massive potential for good but I suppose I'm rather biased since I find myself perpetually glued to the screen. Even as I sit here right now, typing away at this assignment, I'm writing a preconceived message on my laptop for the entire world to read at the click of a button. Anyone across the globe with access to the Internet can login to their device and sit wherever they please to read my message. Not too long ago, our world would send messages that would not reach their destination for days, weeks, months and in some cases not at all. Even in my lifetime, I've seen media progress from email, to AIM (revolutionary for the instant message concept) and eventually texting/social media. On Facebook, I'm connected to whoever I want in the entire world and can message them whenever I please. My entire band has a group chat where we send messages and coordinate plans. I can view pictures and videos of things my best friends are up to. Every piece of information I could ever want or need is so close and that information is power.
Where do we draw the line?
But I can see the downfall of digital media as well. As Baym suggests in her first chapter, perhaps it can create psychological problems for people, such as a sense of self. If you asked someone a hundred years ago to define "attendance," they would say that the person would have to be physically present in order to qualify. Now, in a world where group chats, phone calls and even video calls are everywhere, we could say that
that is "attendance." I'm sure most people today have had at least one or two Skype interviews in their lifetime. But where do we draw the line? How do we define "self" now that there is a digital carbon copy of us at all times? The other interesting thought from the chapter that I see more and more is the idea of "volume control," how people can control how much of the media they're getting. If I'm in a meeting with another person, for instance, and they tell me something that makes me feel uncomfortable or that I simply don't want to deal with, I'm forced to answer the question anyway and somehow work through that conversation -- in
real time. However, now that we can read messages ahead of time, we can choose whether or not to respond to them immediately. We can make our own schedules. It's a nice safety net, but it's also not fun when someone leaves
you on read. So I can see how digital media can be a crutch as well.
I do absolutely agree with you on everything you say in this post, especially the part where you mention volume control, and how it both has its pros and cons.
ReplyDeleteI can admit that I sometimes "forget" to answer when a get texts from random people that I never have met before; from people who has found me on Instagram for instance. I really like that function, that we can choose what to respond on, and what to not respond on, or even blocking a person that seems unsafe.
But also, like you said, it's never fun being the one standing without no answer from someone you were expecting a response from.
Its a very interesting point that you brought up in "attendance" and how we can define ourselves digitally. With each new social media platform we kind of get the chance to recreate ourselves whether for the better or for worse. Maybe somebody acts quite different on Twitter than they do on Facebook or Instagram and maybe they put too much emphasis on their digital selves instead of their real self. We all live in a world where this is a true possibility, so I think your question of where do we draw the line of how we present ourselves to be very valid, and I dont think there is really any solid answer for it yet.
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