Digital Media, Anxiety, and The Digital Footprint
Writer’s Blog 1: Digital Writing For Social Action
This week in Digital Writing for Social Action, we talked a lot about the affordances and constraints of digital media. Specifically, one of our discussions was around anxieties that may come with digital media. This was an enlightening discussion for me because I am accustomed to thinking of the ways digital media is useful to day-to-day life, and so it was interesting to discuss the constraints of digital media as well as some of the anxieties it may bring. In a small group, we brainstormed just a few of the ways digital media may bring anxiety, and I would like to highlight a few of the ones that I have continued to think about:
- Due to the high amount of information flow, people may feel the need to stay updated at all times, making it hard to “unplug.”
- Digital media can present problems with emotion recognition specifically in written dialogue because the reader cannot necessarily see the writer’s emotions and visa versa. This is an issue that would not occur in a face-to-face presentation or conversation, but can easily happen over a phone call, text, or even something like a narrated presentation or blog post.
- Social comparison. This is especially true with social media. People tend to share the best versions of themself, which causes anxiety around feeling like you must be perfect at all times.
- Along with this issue of social comparison is cancel culture or a focus on the “digital footprint.” In other words, there is an additional pressure to look perfect on the internet in fear of how what you (or others) post about you could affect your image and things like a future career.
For the rest of my blog today, I would like to focus on the issue of a digital footprint and the specific affordances and constraints this aspect of digital media may bring. To me, a digital footprint is basically the idea that whatever you post on social media or what is posted about you will be there forever, meaning it could have lasting impacts. A big way these impacts come into play is with “cancel culture.” Cancel culture usually refers to a celebrity or influencer being “canceled” because of their actions. While cancel culture usually refers to celebrities, digital footprints also affect literally everyone who has ever posted or has been posted by someone else on social media. There are certainly affordances and constraints with this. First of all, whether you are a fan of someone, a potential employer, or even a friend of someone, it can be very valuable to look into someone’s internet presence to assess if your values line up before deciding to invest your energy into them. It is a new and unique way of keeping people accountable in a way that did not exist in the past.
As far as constraints go, the effects of such internet digging can be crippling. As someone who has been told since I was probably 13 to be extremely conscious of what I post and what is posted about me, it is definitely anxiety-inducing. Even though I know (or think) I have never done anything to be “canceled” for or to be taken out of the running for a future job, it is still a semi-constant fear in the back of my head. Does the idea of a digital footprint allow people to genuinely change? What if I was naive to what was offensive when I was 15 and someone took a video of me saying something wrong and now that affects my entire future? The affordance here is that perhaps if I had not changed, I could be held accountable. However, there is also a huge constraint here because often people may be canceled without being given a chance to explain how they have changed or give more context. Right now, I am not aware of some of the things that could be considered inconsiderate or offensive in 5, 10, or 20 years. What if, for example, I write a blog on a social issue for this class and in 10 years an employer finds it and completely disagrees with my stance? These are some of the constant anxieties that come with digital media.
Overall, a major constraint of digital media is context. Whether this has to do with a digital footprint, emotional recognition, social comparison, or the issue of fake news, it seems that a common denominator here is that there does not seem to be enough context. If only we could know the source of the news, the emotions behind the screen, or the context of a piece of digital media, perhaps all of these issues would be alleviated. Is there a way to solve these issues? Perhaps in a later blog, I will discuss my opinion that all of these anxieties and constraints also come with great affordances which are not worth giving up in spite of the anxiety.
