While reading “Smartphones are ‘Replace-ing’ the City, Book Argues” and “The Spatial Self”, I noticed I was continuously thinking about the Snapchat feature where you can share your location on a map. Particularly, I found myself reflecting on my own and peers’ use of the feature during the time of COVID.
When it was first released, it was a fun (and also kinda creepy in my opinion) new feature where you could see the exact location of friends when they used the app. People seemed to warm up to this new feature fast and it was a sort of subtle new way to show off where you are; you don’t have to proactively post about being somewhere, you just have to open Snapchat and it would update your location. A person’s spatial self could exist without them even having to post thus beginning the blurring of the line between the disconnected physical self and the spatial self.
Though, this feature that I feel like was always in the back of people’s minds was pushed to the forefront during the start of the pandemic. To my surprise, I heard peers frequently talk about seeing people’s “bitmojis” on the “snapmap” in places they shouldn’t be during a pandemic such as large group gatherings, exotic locations, and more. People were being socially shunned for their mistake of leaving snapmaps on while breaking COVID-guidelines. The “spatial self” of existing where you are physically and on snapchat became a dangerous game. I even started hearing people curate their “snapmaps”; turning on location services when they were in a location deemed socially responsible during COVID and turning it off if they were somewhere they were “not supposed to be”. People had begun to use their location services as a tactic to present themselves as morally and socially responsible to an extent. This demonstrates a tactic because the individual is using the Snapchat system to emphasize when they are being a “good citizen”, what particular times they want to be shown. People would show off when they were following guidelines and “going dark” when they weren’t (which I also find interesting because that’s kinda the opposite of what was happening pre-covid). Users were taking the resources provided by Snapchat to “get away” with anti-COVID protocol while still existing online when they wished.
I guess in summary, I find it interesting how the pandemic has really exposed how important the spatial self is in our world and how the idea of the spatial self has moved past just simply social media to our every movement. People became extremely hyper-aware of where they were, if that space is considered socially acceptable at that moment, and who else would be aware of the space they are in. If they were to share an experience that was against Covid guidelines, they could be perceived as being part of the larger issue. I think this extreme hyper-awareness has relaxed in the past couple of weeks, but I am definitely interested in seeing if it persists to some extent or what might bring it back in full strength.
