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Implications of New Media - Coggle Diagram
Implications of New Media
Inauthentic Curation of Self Image on Social Media
We ask friends if the picture "looks okay" or if the caption is funny or too weird, as if this curated presentation reflects more of ourselves than our own actions.
We can be kind, generous, and compassionate, yet if our Instagram posts are grainy or too "basic," our worth to the world is subsequently diminished.
Whether we are hiking, going out with friends, or even reading a book, we feel the need to record our actions and pimp them so that they display our "best" selves.
Somehow, our mental health or body image issues are no longer handled with a stiff upper lip, but rather deemed a quirky personality trait that parallels with our zodiac sign.
While we attempt to curate the perfect image on social media, we care significantly less about the individual's actions outside the virtual realm.
So long as the individual appears "woke," politically active, or stylish, their reputation remains in top shape.
In the age of new media, we attempt to accomplish the impossible: we curate an online persona that is neither completely accurate nor actually attainable.
We can behave disingenuously while still looking genuine.
Intolerance of the Human Experience & Cancel Culture
This is not to say that eternal social condemnation lacks validity in
some
cases (e.g. Harvey Weinstein), but it seems rather unfair to make new media the judge, jury, and executioner of an individual's fate.
Thus, as we condemn people in an online forum, we bounce off one another's hatred and lose the complexity of individual thinking.
This is especially the case with "cancel culture," as if technology has eliminated the prospect of humans making egregious mistakes.
In this way, social media upholds the darker side of the human experience.
We no longer tolerate rough edges.
By interacting more online than in-person, we expect people to handle their pain in submission of the greater social media experience.
The creativity, individuality, and raw emotional responses that define the human experience are suddenly shadowed by the permanent, pervasive "perfection" of social media.
Pictures at the beach and mundane tweets about our breakfast outrank the darker nuances of everyday life.
Political "Slacktavism"
Sorority and fraternity members alike rushed to support individuals who submitted their stories in an attempt to appear on the right side of history.
This experience highlights the dichotomy of utilizing new media as a form of protest.
After "Black at..." accounts highlighted the experiences of Black students at academic institutions and universities across the country, women at my old university followed suit by creating an "Exposing Abusers" account.
We all have a certain idea in our heads of who should be protesting and what can be said.
Yet, they would utilize social media platforms to hypocritically advocate for "Women supporting women," and "Believing survivors."
Within communities on new media platforms, we rarely want to hear the uncomfortable truths from those that actually experience them.
We don't
actually
have to donate money to bail funds or sign petitions or call representatives or attend protests to demonstrate our support.
Furthermore, as we continue to depend on new media and our brains shift accommodate the digital era, we enable performative protest and fail to dig deeper.
If we protest performatively and support Black Lives Matter (BLM) on "blackout tuesday" or post aesthetically pleasing images of protest in-between pictures with friends at happy hour, we prove that we are good, anti-racist individuals.
If someone simply presents the right image or tweets the right thing, we praise them for their political activism and move on to watch mind-numbing videos on TikTok or YouTube.
As we navigate through 2020, a generally tumultuous year with reckonings for racists and rapists alike, new media is utilized as a protective shield.
Want & Addiction
We don't care if they want our money, our attention, or our support - we simply want to feel wanted.
Thus, as Hubbard claims, "Apparently it's not the content, but the very act of receiving a message - any message - that hooks us," we can no longer relax and exist simply for the joy of the moment.
Despite knowing that technology provides us with junk emails or a "pop-up notification about the score of a sporting event that I didn't even know was happening..." we crave the feeling that someone out in the void of new media wants us.
Misc.
Perhaps this is the most frightening outcome of technological advancement - by negating the social interactions we depended on and evolved with as a species, we may very well end the human connection as we know it.
Thus, as we condemn people in an online forum, we bounce off one another's hatred and lose the complexity of individual thinking.
As Hubbard contends, the "...addictive nature of technology" ropes us all in and fundamentally alters the way in which we see reality.
As our patience and sources shrink, so does our mind.
If anything, our brains now accept basic decency and no longer have the patience to demand more.
Rather than reading a book or a scholarly article, we skim the metaphorical footnotes and lean on a tweet to capture all of the valuable information.
Thus, with our brain capacity and the technology at hand, we do so little with so much.