Tuesday, February 14, 2012

The Culture of Connectivity

One point I enjoyed Danah Boyd touching on in her speech regarding social media is the concept of time on the internet. She noted that everything you say stays online for a looong time. This is great in most aspects of academia, especially in terms of discussions, notes, papers, etc. but becomes, perhaps, problematic in terms of other social media forms such as Facebook.

Facebook became popular when I was in undergrad and with the introduction of it's new timeline feature I can see all of the content that's been posted since that time - and it's not especially flattering to my 26 year old self now. Of course, there are some aspects of this general idea that make Facebook so great - pictures, for example, of high school and college that may have been lost or that I would not have access to otherwise. However, the line between social documentation and simply soon-to-be-embarrassing becomes more and more blurred with the notion that whatever you put out there stays there.

The idea of audience and social media being so intertwined in our social lives does make this concept less scary, though. "Everybody is doing it" still comes into play. I think one of the main aspects found so desirable about Facebook is that the majority of people you know, may know, or have ever seen in life are on there. The content that I find embarrassing now may be because I am expanding my social circle, I am growing up and becoming more professional, etc. and wish to reach out to those people who follow along those lines. However, the majority of my audience on Facebook is in the same boat as I am - they are old friends, college buddies, family members, etc. who either know those things already about me or have the same kind of content available on their Facebook pages.

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