We tend to think that TV is a passive media, that channel surfing is not a proper way to interact with the media. I haven't heard anyone say that watching the same game everyone else watches is an intelligent way to express oneself. At the same time we tend to think that social media, and now I'm talking about Facebook, is an active media, a tool to express real opinions and personality.
I disagree. My three years of Facebook will come to an end soon, mostly because I got sad, not so much because of issues regarding Facebook ethics. I did not see the embrace of the long tail; instead I saw the mass sharing of mass media. I did not see new ways of self expression; instead I saw endless quizzes and groups that were supposed to say something about the submitter. Finally, and I am a bad person: I did not connect with my old friends and colleagues; instead I remembered why I had originally disconnected from them.
Our new tools for self expression seem to have taken the communication into the next level, but in reality they just dictate the new rules of how to communicate. Limiting expression is on the other hand good; when I was a teenager, I could say everything I needed by wearing a certain t-shirt. But now we have so many t-shirts available that we forget they are just t-shirts. Liking is not the same thing than using your brain to come up with words that form sentences that somehow positively comment on the item. Joining a group is not the same thing than studying a subject and being ready to argue about it, again using words that form sentences. Checking boxes on a test and sharing the result is not the same thing than coming up with a personal way to make people smile, for example by selecting words that form funny sentences. Status updating and commenting (still) requires the use of text, but as a very bad person, I just see "hello everyone please notice me" messages filling up the feeds. I don't know how this single entry blog is any different, but I know there is a line somewhere, separating content from noise.
I get back to the channel surfing. What is the difference between clicking number buttons on a remote, showing it through the flashing light of your apartment window, and clicking like, share and join buttons of social media, showing it through the noise on your feed? When some selected families switch channels, they are registered in audience metrics, in web, every click counts. How big of a difference is that?
Finally, even if I am cynical now, I am a strong believer of positive future regarding communication and democracy and things like that. But I do not believe in the yadayada hallelujah of social media, the term has already died.
Text: Wesa Aapro
Photo: Vesa Metsätähti
Hmmm... Some good notions in there regarding the mono-cultural aspect of social media (e.g.).
ReplyDeleteHowever, we should we remember that we use a certain discourse to exist in an environment (e.g. Facebook) that is designed for certain purposes yet the environment and the discourse are changing all the time, transformed both by the people who are using, maintaining and developing it.
Additionally, I'd say it's still a bit too straightforward to reduce a heterogeneous group of individuals to a faceless MASS of passive people, incapable of true self-expression of creativity. One could ask, if the value of a given expression should be based on its level of creativity (creative in what/whose standards)? Does someone know better than the individual herself, what is important to her in her life e.g. considering her personal forms of self-expression, needs, beliefs etc.
Everyone has their own reasons to express themselves in a certain way, everyone has their own reasons to participate in the collective discourse (whatever exact forms it will take). Everyone has their own interface to the reality. In the end of the day, not so many of us is ready to fill a blank canvas alone in the corner of the room.
The important thing is that we can participate and that we are enabled to share whatever thoughts in whatever form e.g. through social networking site. That enables creativity that emerges from every act of self-expression. No matter how non-creative that act might be.
Thank you for the lenghty comment.
ReplyDeleteI finally found the motivation to reply, because I came up with a nice acronym, MPOM, which stands for Massively Passive Online Media. I no longer have a wall where to post my quick thoughts.
Regarding the comment, I do think the ways how people express themselves can be evaluated. Punching someone in the face is not a very good way to solve a problem. It is illegal, because the lawmakers have evaluated it ill enough to be banned.
There are people who draw the line of of what is legal. We can also try to draw the line of what brings value. When the tools encourage to send certain kinds of messages, it limits the "bandwith" and cuts the overall value of the communiaction.
It is actually a very valid queston to ask, why there is not a dislike button. Who decides that we should be encouraged to focus on positive communication?
Monocultural aspects of Facebook are related to the massive obligation to control social relations as technical blocking of noice, which makes social interaction taste metal. The consequence is an infernal behaviour pattern of not being able to get infatuated about anything anymore which takes its pride only from the success in 110m hurdles: all you leave behind are barriers that take appromaximately a second to overcome.
ReplyDeleteGood measure in resisting opportunistic disenchantment is to ask, what other sacrifices do one make other than keystrokes with a keyboard. If a Facebook group has a meeting somewhere, maybe its time to join.