Snapchat and our image saturated world
It argues that we are now living in a world that increasingly shares the characteristics of a medieval oral culture and subsequently, we have no further use for the written word. It references the Israeli scholar, Oren Soffer, to emphasise the view that our culture is shaped by the dominant communication technologies of the time.The article further articulates the fact that because “snapchatters” do not use the app to preserve images but to communicate and talk, it indisputably echos a primary oral culture. The fact that the app doesn’t store images also imitates an oral culture and the inability of its technologies when it came to storing knowledge.
In short, they argue that the impermanence, lack of fixity and storage indisputably point to a return to an oral culture.
Is this true?
Well, yes and no.
Yes —
1. The potentialities of a pictorial story without the constraints of text are endless, which does echo an oral culture.
2. We increasingly use images and emojiis to emphasise, accentuate or even replace our text to the point where I’ve observed that:
.I’ve had entire conversations using just images and emojiis.
. It feels strange and rude to write an email without using emojiis.
. People worry something is wrong if a text or message is devoid of emojiis.
3. As a culture, we no longer rely on the text in isolation to explicate meaning. If we cannot use images or emojiis, we will often resort to fonts.
No —
- The idea of ephemera that the app is so well known for, can and must be problematised. Pictures are easily preservable. You can screenshot other people’s pictures and save your own.
Any snap can be screenshotted which means any person you send a snap to or who sees your story can instantaneously click a button and
have a permanent copy of anything you share. - Other features of Snapchat, such as a username, snapcode and the details of location, time and person-hood visible on your story belie the anonymity of an oral culture.
- When you screenshot, the personal details and details of someone’s name, location and where they posted it appear, further belying anonymity and perpetuating a social anxiety that was not attached to self-hood in an oral culture.
In conclusion, whilst Snapchat is indeed enticing with its affordances of a pictorial story and images relating backwards and forwards, we still have a great great need for the written word. I think it would be more correct to say that we are living in a much more image saturated culture, than a post literary one.
On a personal note.
I have known the need for the written word since 2001, when, on a sunny September in sleepy East Cork, planes flew into the Twin Towers. The T.V stayed on all day as we watched flames and smoke balloon from burning buildings out of which people soared and plummeted. My mother and aunt watched wordlessly. What could they say? How could this be explained?
What I felt that day, as a six year old, more than anything else, was frustration. I was still learning to read. I wanted explanation, I wanted to be able to understand the words at the bottom of the screen, the bold, black, insistent words that were repeated over and over again as the events unfolded. In the absence of my mother and aunts words, in the absence of explication, I needed to know. I wanted the words to somehow make sense of what I was seeing.
