cyborg personalitys.
Saturday, August 8, 2009 by Andy
Briefly in our tutorial (although we were meant to be discussing gender), we touched over the idea of social networks changing the way we socialize or interact with others.
Then the other day when a friend of mine posted a comment on his profile complaining about endlessly doing his study. Another comment from his friend was posted in response making the claim that he had not being studying he had instead being WoWing (world of war craft, playing) instead of doing his study. My friend, who posted the comment about study, clearly did not want to be associated with WoW. The next the comment was deleted, leaving no evidence. With a simple click of the button, he had literally taken back something he had said as though it never even happened, something one would not be able to do if they were having an immediate conversation with a person.
I had an idea then, that just as we can edit text on the computer, we can also edit our personalities. How much of our 'real' personalities are reflected through social networks? Personalities online are not the same as personalities in real life because of the differences between the immediacy of one on one interaction vs the disrupted flow of conversation via technology.
Technology disrupts the flow of immediacy because of the way which users can edit and reedit as many times as they want, making their words appear seamless, intelligent or witty. When replying to someone’s post (using facebook as an example), people have the opportunity to construct their words as they please. When arguing with someone, each person can take the time to think up a clever response, and both could appear clever and confident. In real life a person may stumble on his or her words in the awkwardness of conflict. They may think of what they could say later but not be able to actually express it.
In the lecture when Luke asked people to turn to the person next to them and say what their favorite movie was, personally I was baffled. I love many movies and so I would have said one of the first few to come to mind in my head. However I was nervous because I wanted to present a movie that represented my taste in movies as being different from the mainstream. If I was typing my favorite movie in a social networking site such as Bebo, I would have searched through my mental memory to find the a foreign film that maybe won a Sundance award at some point and have typed that down. However being put on the spot the only thing that came to mind was ‘twilight’ because I had seen that film most recently and secretly I enjoyed it.
There lies an awkward future. If people continually resort to the internet to communicate and depend more and more heavily on the use of technology for the purpose of interaction, everyone will become the same. being unable to distinguish between those with a sense of humor and the ones who have to think for a while to come up with something that others might be considered funny or the ones that come across opinionated, but in real life lack the ability to speak their opinion compared to the ones that always speak their opinion in real life, how is one to know whose personality is real?
Then the other day when a friend of mine posted a comment on his profile complaining about endlessly doing his study. Another comment from his friend was posted in response making the claim that he had not being studying he had instead being WoWing (world of war craft, playing) instead of doing his study. My friend, who posted the comment about study, clearly did not want to be associated with WoW. The next the comment was deleted, leaving no evidence. With a simple click of the button, he had literally taken back something he had said as though it never even happened, something one would not be able to do if they were having an immediate conversation with a person.
I had an idea then, that just as we can edit text on the computer, we can also edit our personalities. How much of our 'real' personalities are reflected through social networks? Personalities online are not the same as personalities in real life because of the differences between the immediacy of one on one interaction vs the disrupted flow of conversation via technology.
Technology disrupts the flow of immediacy because of the way which users can edit and reedit as many times as they want, making their words appear seamless, intelligent or witty. When replying to someone’s post (using facebook as an example), people have the opportunity to construct their words as they please. When arguing with someone, each person can take the time to think up a clever response, and both could appear clever and confident. In real life a person may stumble on his or her words in the awkwardness of conflict. They may think of what they could say later but not be able to actually express it.
In the lecture when Luke asked people to turn to the person next to them and say what their favorite movie was, personally I was baffled. I love many movies and so I would have said one of the first few to come to mind in my head. However I was nervous because I wanted to present a movie that represented my taste in movies as being different from the mainstream. If I was typing my favorite movie in a social networking site such as Bebo, I would have searched through my mental memory to find the a foreign film that maybe won a Sundance award at some point and have typed that down. However being put on the spot the only thing that came to mind was ‘twilight’ because I had seen that film most recently and secretly I enjoyed it.
There lies an awkward future. If people continually resort to the internet to communicate and depend more and more heavily on the use of technology for the purpose of interaction, everyone will become the same. being unable to distinguish between those with a sense of humor and the ones who have to think for a while to come up with something that others might be considered funny or the ones that come across opinionated, but in real life lack the ability to speak their opinion compared to the ones that always speak their opinion in real life, how is one to know whose personality is real?