Week Four Commentary
The online universe is not too dissimilar to the real world in the sense that it raises questions of what is good and what is evil? The good is the connectedness, the ability to chat with friends on the other side of the planet or to stay connected with current events, while on the flipside there are the perceived evils; “algorithms in the steering of desires” and an “apparent tension between community-based connectedness and commercialised connectivity” (Van Dijck 2013, p. 155).
In relation to my own media behaviours, remaining connected is integral as it affords me the opportunity to stay connected with friends that live rurally or are travelling. Additionally, without social media I’d have no source of news and current events as ‘old media’ is not utilised in my day to day life. Additionally, as a media buyer I embrace digital saturation with “gleeful appropriation” however, it is interesting to see how consumers interact with our ads as it makes it quite evident that there is a “critical resistance” towards the commercial use of social media (Van Dijck 2013, p. 155).
Seeing consumers interact with content that is a #ad makes it hard for me to agree with Jurgenson’s statement that “the disconnectionists see the Internet as having normalised, perhaps even enforced an unprecedented repression of the authentic self in favour of calculated avatar performance” (2013). If the Internet repressed the “authentic self” there would not be a critical eye for seeking organic content over paid content.
The question for me that is yet to be answered, is how an online presence makes one self “inauthentic”, why are there suggestions of “digital detox, disconnection, and unplugging” (Jurgenson 2013)? Paul Miller from The Vergetook a year long absence from the Internet and the outcome from his offline life is that he is the same person with and without the Internet. DeBoer in relation to Paul Miller’s experience writes it “is typical of people who have disconnected: they come back to report that in fact their online selves are more real and more fulfilling, and that really it was their doubts and dissatisfaction with the internet that had been misguided” (2014). Being connected doesn’t appear to have any adverse effects to one’s identity, at the end of the day it is an individual’s choice to be connected.
References
Van Dijck, J. (2013) ‘The Ecosystem of Connective Media’ pp. 154–176
Jurgenson, N. (2013) ‘The Disconnectionists’, The New Inquiry: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-disconnectionists/
DeBoer, F. (2014) ‘Digital Breaks, or “Breaks”’, The Dish