Part 1:
In The Atlantic article, “The Real Trouble With Silicon Valley” it touches on the contradictory, economic consequences of living in our current computer age. “The smartphone, for all its wonder and utility, has also proved to be a narcotizing agent”, and is causing a stagnated state in society, where America now arguably lacks the ingenuity and inventiveness it once had. Thompson interestingly argues about the often overlooked, Big Tech companies’ “unfulfilled promises”. The internet age was supposed to create more jobs, however it continues to make only a handful of people rich. This article taught me that, rather than another industrial revolution, digital technologies gave us a revolution of “consumer convenience”. As the greater minds in society continue to neglect progress in the physical world, our economy will continue to digress, along with the availability of jobs.
I learned about the bittersweet vulnerability of monoculture as a result of algorithms in Chayka’s article, “What is monoculture?” As a society in the midst of the “Streaming Wars”, algorithms on Netflix, for instance, carve us our own individualized niches, yet prevents us from watching content beyond its algorithmic recommendations. The large amount of content available on platforms such as Netflix and Hulu allows its recommendation algorithms to supply us with our own data-driven content. The universality and connectedness that comes with monoculture is disappearing. Instead of the “Watching Together” feeling associated with monoculture, algorithms created a “Watching Separately” feeling “because we watch different things at different paces for different reasons” (Chakya, 2019). I first-handedly experience algorithms’ profound impact on our culture, and how it recommends only the most popular content has had a homogenizing effect. However, despite the apparent interconnectedness of participating in the monoculture by discussing the latest episode of Stranger Things rather than Frozen Planet, algorithms dangerously prevent us from exploring beyond the monoculture, to the content that is not in the “Popular on Netflix” section. Instead of watching the intriguing documentaries untouched by the majority, I find myself conforming to the popular. I can relate to Chayka’s argument that although monoculture provides a discourse for conversation, it simultaneously prevents individuality and exploration beyond the monocultural scope, putting solidarity at stake.
In “The new surveillance capitalism”, Naughton discusses the undesirable transformation of a free cyberspace to a commercialized, corporate-controlled one. I learned that the “free” access to the internet comes with the price of privacy. “Through their ability to monitor our searches these companies — as well as the governments they cooperate with — are able to see our innermost thoughts and desires” (Thompson, 2020). The new business model of the 21st century is surveillance capitalism, where a “company provides free services in return for unlimited access to users’ personal information and data trails, which are then refined, packaged and sold to advertisers” (Thompson, 2020). The mantra “if the service is free, then you are the product” runs the priorities of the major companies dominating the web. We are not customers for the conglomerates, but are the products for advertising companies. Additionally, social media is used as online tools for political advertising, sometimes in corrupt ways that result in unfair campaigning and fake news. Ultimately, this article reminded me that every click counts and is documented in the advertising machines that run our “free” internet, a frightening realization that demands more conscious awareness when surfing the web. It is essential to not overdose on “user engagement”, the fuel to the fire of surveillance capitalism. We see this at work in the video, In the Age of AI. Jobs are increasingly threatened with autonomous vehicles, games like Google’s AlpaGo which foreshadows the future of artificial intelligence, as well as the unintentional symbiotic relationship between us and Google, where our searches become their entryway into our lives.
Part 2:
Gillespie’s (2010) article on the discursive work centered around platform “suggests that the role of distributing information is a neutral one, where the function is merely the passage of any and all content without discrimination” (p. 357). My keyword, “archive” makes similar suggestions. The distribution of information on online databases is not neutral, but selective. If one lacks resources, such as a computer or a smartphone, digital archives would be considered discriminatory players, further widening the digital gap. Companies prefer to use “platform” in their written services because of its positive connotations, and its “open, neutral, egalitarian and progressive support for activity” (Gillespie, 2010, p. 352). Archive also has positive associations with it. The concept of endless digital storage provides a sense of security and relief for us. However, it obscures the discriminatory access, as well as the tendency to archive everything in our information-overload era. We often forget the true literate pieces of work and how to decipher what is worthy of archiving.
