After a day full of lectures and tutorials, I needed to take my daily of caffeine. Since time was on my side, I decided to visit a local café that was closer to home and take the time to reflect on this week’s tutorial conversation as well as de-stress (well, try to) about the upcoming assignments in week three. It was around the lunch peak hour where people in their business attire dash in and out of the front door, mums with their bubs, friends catching up, and couples here and there. As I observe my surroundings, I’ve noticed that at least every person on every table is constantly on looking down on their screens socialising with other people. That seems to be the norm nowadays. I’m not saying it’s entirely a bad thing, it can be when it comes to proper etiquette but then again I can’t judge, but it made me realise how much social networking has added another dimension to what it means to be “social”.

According to the Pew Research Centre, 49% of smartphone owners’ aged 18 to 29 use messaging apps followed by 37% aged 30 to 49, and 24% aged 50 and older. Almost half of 18-29 year olds prefer using Wi-Fi in order to communicate with people rather than text messaging or phone calls. If I can get access to free Wi-Fi why not? Even finding out if the person has read your message or not comes in handy (most of the time). Despite the convenience and efficiency, text messaging and phone calls are still prevalent for times when your data runs out, when there’s no Wi-Fi or even communicating with people who don’t use messaging apps.

Moreover, Facebook has become a global community with more than 1.3 billion accounts existing in 2016. It would be the most populous nation in the world. According to The Guardian, Facebook’s user base grows by eight people per second, or 7,246 people every fifteen minutes. Due to its popularity, impact, and cost-effectiveness, Facebook ads have made the site one of the most popular online advertising platforms in the world with approximately more than two million active advertisers. However, using Facebook for free comes with its catches. Ever seen an ad on the side of your timeline or news feed that relates to something you’ve posted or searched about recently? Maybe those shoes or those concert tickets that you’ve been continuously Googling? We are consumers who provide our own personal information as data. Furthermore, this personal data can connect you to your other social media sites and could potentially cost or win you your job. Employers have resorted beyond a resume in order to employ according to their checklist such as how well a person presents themselves to the whole world.

Snapchat has revolutionised the way we socialise. According to Expanded Ramblings, as of March 2016, there are more than 100 million users with 1 in 4 being teenagers. Compared to Facebook, it’s more of a “personal” way of communicating where the Snaps are basically an instant recount of someone’s life within a few seconds or “day in the life of…” Some have even dubbed SnapStories as “diary account of sorts” (minus the privacy part). The only way Snaps can be released into the world/an entire audience, is through a screen shot or saving the video.

As I said before, it’s necessarily a bad thing when people are on their phones while having coffee with them. I’ve seen the mums exchanging their phones on hilarious photos or stories of their bubs on Facebook, a couple bonding over silly memes, friends catching up on their latest adventures by flickering through their Instagram pics. Ironically, at the front of the café, a bright sign in chalk says “Sorry, we don’t have Wi-Fi. Talk to each and pretend it’s 1995 again”. It’s hard to pretend its 1995 again when we’re in the middle of such a shift with what we perceive as “social”. Balance and proper etiquette is ultimately the key.

 (may contain spoilers, click back now if you wish)

David Gauntlett describes media to fall into two peaks. The first being “basically inspiring and optimistic” and the second is “basically troubling and pessimistic”.

The latter peak that involves data manipulation, surveillance and evolving forms of “extreme… computerised capitalism” is heavily explored in Sam Esmail’s hacker tech drama Mr .Robot.

Other than being an asocial computer guru and frequent morphine user, protagonist Elliot Anderson is employed as a cyber-security engineer for the massive corporation E Corp (or in Elliot’s terms – Evil Corp). By night, he’s a cyber-vigilante to “saving the world, saving everyone from the invisible hand”. For instance, Elliot uses his ability to expose and lead the police to a coffee-shop owner’s child pornography content from hacking into the Wi-Fi the owner uses in his cafés. On the other hand, Mr. Robot would introduce characters through Elliot’s meddling ways into their online personas rather than through every day interactions. At times the hacking works in his favour to bring justice, but on the contrary, it becomes an act of breaching privacy. Thus, Mr. Robot puts emphasis on how vulnerable privacy is in the Internet age and the current inequalities of the world.

As Elliot successfully resolves a series of serious cyber-attacks onto E Corp, he attracts the interest of Mr Robot – the leader of FSociety. An alliance of underground hackers, who’s main agenda is to take down E Corp. In conjunction with struggling to establish the moral compass as a hacker, Elliot also struggles as a clinically depressed young man who is attacking a society he’s displaced within.

Having only watched the first few episodes of season one, Rami Malek’s portrayal as Elliot draws the audience into his complex persona and into his world that can often become an illusion of his reality. The witty dialogue also provides the audience with plot twists, realistic character development and while maintaining the episodes on Elliot’s perspective.

A cracker of a show and definitely made me perceive media in a different light, or in this case, at a different peak. Check out this snippet from the Pilot episode:

According to David Gauntlett, “media boils down” to three aspects: conversation, inspiration and making things happen or in other words; being practical. We can “study” about how media came to be (the theory), but living within a time where there’s a rapid shift in technology and how we interact with each other makes it much more interesting.

(To name a handful of scenarios)
What seemed like a small world has suddenly become smaller. We can communicate with someone on the other side of the world and raise awareness on issues through comments, likes/reactions and hashtags (to name a few).
In that process, inspiration can weave in. Media convergence allows anyone to be a filmmaker (for example) when all they need is a smartphone and creativity. Inspiration can blossom from a simple and humble YouTube or Vine video, not just from big-budget production made films.

Gauntlett’s emphasis on “making media” made me reflect on why I decided to do this course in the first place. With creativity regularly oozing out of the depths of my mind, I want to access as many opportunities as I can to convey my (sometimes weird) ideas through a vast range of mediums and platforms. It’s the third week and I’ve already edited at least two videos on Premiere Pro (used by the professionals too and user friendly, so far) and I’ve got a blog!?

Just like ourselves, media is fluid and undergoes metamorphosis on a regular basis. Gauntlett hits the nail on the head when he says that “we need to make things with media in order to think more thoroughly” rather than digesting (possibly biased) information and perceiving things as either black or white.