Week 4: Social Media
Social media has become such a broad and excessive term we use every single day. We use the term to whilst writing a post on a social media app. The term is used on social media sites for example in a post, to bash the very thing they are using. For example, when Caroline Flack took her own life following years of online abuse, people were quick to write posts bashing these very same social media networking sites they use every day.
Caroline Flack’s death and Social Media
This shows that we all know the harmful effects it can have, but we still use it as it is embedded in our daily lives in every single aspect.
Web 1.0 refers to the too technically inaccessible aspect of the internet, when it was harder to publish and produce content as you needed required technical skills for the software. This promoted passive usage habits and didn’t work well for marketing companies. Then, suddenly the term Web 2.0 was thrown into the mix and marketing just became a whole lot easier. Web 2.0 refers to mode of internet usage that allows users to produce their own online content easily, with it including a high level of participation. This means, advertisers can now capitalise on this and can essentially make users contribute to marketing and strategy. Most users who use the internet probably aren’t aware they are being targeted by marketing companies through every click and scroll they make. When you really focus and think on this topic, it shows us how the internet can become dark so very fast. We have no idea the level of surveillance that is on us right now. I remember when i was a child, i had a first generation ‘iPod’ and there was this free app on the app store that tapped into CCTV camera footage all over the world. Very scary. And we are just expected to be okay with this because this comes as a result from being just another user on Web 2.0!
One point i found really interesting was from Wendy Chun’s (2016) research. When focusing on the problem of control and freedom she discusses the update functions on all this software we encounter everyday and how it functions to destabilise online activity habits. Personally, i rarely update my apps because i am lazy to press the button ‘update’, but also because i get used to the already made changes and don’t want to have to learn a new layout. Chun explains that making updates constantly functions as a political appartus, so updates enforce behavioral changes in online activity.
References
Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. 2016. ‘Introduction: Habitual New Media, or Updating to Remain (Close to) the Same’ in Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media. Massachusetts, United States: MIT Press. 1-20.
Image of my own social networking apps from my iPhone. [2020].
Seymour, R. (2020) Caroline Flack’s death shows how social media has democratised cruelty. The Guardian [Online], 21 February. Available from: <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/21/caroline-flack-death-social-media-cruelty-celebrities>.