In the my previous two posts, I raised a lot of questions more or less focused on how the idea that the over saturation of content (both high and low production) has spoiled us for choice and has made us cling to the content we know online as to not waste our time. Reflecting upon this further, the questions that I ask my self is if the influx of major production companies into the world wide web are the reason that people are becoming less active and more passive with their online consumption? Has the creation of ‘online networks’ gotten rid of the authentic, personal voices that people had on the internet a few years ago? Or have we always projected what we wanted people to see us as online?

With the rush of major production companies and mainstream media outlets pouring money and their content into the internet, they seem to be drowning out the small authentic content creators. On the other hand, lots of early internet content creators have risen to large production company status from their humble beginnings on the internet. Has the content they are making lost the original flair and heart that their older content had? Was the content they were making before they become a large online media network more authentic? Has the invasion of mainstream media online discouraged people from posting online?

Through out theses posts I have also frequently touched on the idea of the internet being both a impersonal and unauthentic projection of the people authoring content on it. But in the few ways that author things online I only ever message or send content to people that I know and never go out of my way to share the opinions or content that I make with strangers. Have we as a society, just become jaded towards the idea of sharing everything online due to the over saturation of content and the unauthentic internet personas that we project to the world?

One interesting take on this was on a blog that one of my classmates posted. In her post, she shared some photos that she took to a more or less public Instagram account but had a separate private account for her friends and family to view more personal photos. The idea of having one account forward facing to the public to display what you want people to see you as, and another private account that is more true to you for people like family is an interesting way to use the medium for sure. But both accounts can still raise the question of if they are authentic projections of the person posting.

 

 

Reflecting on my posts it is quite clear that I’m a passive consumer of online content rather than an active participant of the content I consume and create online. Not only that but that a vast majority of the classmates week long documentation is relatively similar to my own.

This got me thinking why in the web 2.0 era, where content can be authored by everyday people that we all have been actively passive when it comes to media online. Was I more active online back when I was first online and if so what has changed over that last few years online that has made me become less so? Or is it because the quality of the content online is at this point at the same level, if not better than what’s being offered within more established media forms? Has the accessibility of the internet and the mountains of choice slowly pacified us?

From looking back at my week of online observation I tended to go back and use/ view similar things in a ritualistic fashion. I wake up in the morning, listen to a series of podcasts that I had been listening to for a while, then watch videos from my subscription feed on youtube. Rarely did I go outside that zone of habit or search for different content. Maybe this is due to the over-saturation of content online that we tend to cling to things we are comfortable with since there is so much ‘bad’ content online that we have to sift through to find something good. I belive this touches on how we value our time now, the idea that we need to fill every second of our day with some sort of visual or noise even if we aren’t in the mood to listen to something.

It could also be due to the ‘suggestion’ and ‘trending’ functions of such sites as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter that has lulled us into the ruts that we can’t get out of, only ever seeing content that the site suggests that we would like based on previous videos and our searching history.

 

Looking back at my media use over the last week it seems like I watch Youtube and listen to podcasts more than anything else. A lot of the time when I was writing these evaluations I felt a bit boring, realising that I don’t author pretty much any content online, but felt a bit better upon reading some of my fellow classmate’s blog posts to see that they weren’t doing much different to in regards to online media consumption. Overall I see myself as a consumer of online media, rather than an active participant, generating and distributing content online.

When I watch a Youtube video or listen to a podcast, it was either me actively watching it for entertainment or just to using it passively as background noise while I’m doing other things like studying, cleaning or being on public transport.

The little online authoring I took part in was concentrated at a few select friends whom I talk to regularly by the use of facebook Messager, Whats app and Snapchat. The things that I sent to them weren’t creative at all really,  just a few photos either of my face or something odd like a poster of a cross-eyed girl in a doctor’s office (with a fast zoom for dramatic effect). These social interactions were just small pockets in my day, they weren’t sustained over the whole day but rather just 5-10 minutes of back and forths until I went back to doing what I was doing.

In the beginning of my online documentation, it was more focused on educational use since I had a project due on Sunday after the first class that we started documenting. But even then I had music playing through Youtube in the background while reading, watched videos on Youtube between readings and would take walks just as an excuse to listen to a podcast to break up the monotony of study.