Social networks seems to be schools full of teenagers and no teachers

Eric Messa
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read

We known, since Foucault, that panoptic structures are used to establish surveillance and social control. This control takes place from a local architecture that allows constant and ubiquitous surveillance.

It is worth transposing this reflection to the architecture of social platforms like Instagram. What is the screen of Instagram that we spend most time on? It is the “feed”, that curiously, presents us with everything that our friends publishes on the platform.

Conclusion: if we evoke George Orwell’s dystopia, Big Brother is not only a superior institution, but also ourselves. A society watched and supervised over by friends.

Self regulated from exchanges of posts and discussions, sometimes quite fierce. Something like a school full of teenagers and no teacher-mentor.

Before bed and as soon as we wake up, we are quietly establishing a process of surveillance of our peers from platforms such as Instagram and control of what is published, through likes and comments.

In such environment, these people are forced to build knowledge from the exchange between their peers and from this, can be born creative and innovative ideas, but also, can make great mistakes that could be avoided.

The Brazilian psychoanalyst Jorge Forbes says that we live a society that organizes itself horizontally, validating its discourses with its peers. We feel the need to resound our decisions to validate them. Perhaps this is the source of the great value we give to “likes” and “dislikes”.

Eric Messa
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