500 Word Summary - No.3

I have been able to be put in contact with Professor Ben Light, who has sent me over a draft copy of his book ‘Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites’ to read through in order to help further my research. I’m finding the research I’m doing at the minute to be really formative and am quickly developing a strong sense of the issues I am talking about. So far, a lot of my research has revolved around self-presentation and developing interpersonal relationships, forming a stronger foundation for my chosen essay question which I’ve decided will be:

- To what extent do Social Networking Sites impact our ability to form interpersonal relationships.

I feel that my research is informing my practice in the sense of how human experience and emotion can inform imagery. I’m very much enjoying working around quotes I’ve found and conversations that people have had online. I have also started to collect the results from my questionnaire, although I could still do with a few more, so will be holding off on pushing that any further and instead developing my written work more whilst waiting for more results to come in.

I have begun analyzing and dissecting my case studies which I’ve chosen to be Victoria Vincents’ two animations, ‘Find True Love’, and ‘kittykat96’. These two animations explore different strands of online culture, looking at communication, self-disclosure and presentation of self specifically. These are both things that impact the development of interpersonal relationships and I feel align with me wanting to look at the individual experience people have online rather than looking at society as a whole. I’ve also found some interviews with Vincent online that allow her to explain her reasoning behind the work and her motives behind her making, I’m hoping to use some quotes from these in my essay.

At the minute, I’m happy with the progress I’m making, despite having an extended period of time away from uni, which I believe has impacted this module in some ways. I’m happy with how my body of research is coming along and think I’m in a position to begin writing now. The practical work is developing a little slower but I am confident in my abilities to get it done. My next steps will be:

- Begin Context and Themes Chapter of Essay
- Compile research from questionnaire
- Develop practical work
- Further research

Case Studies - Victoria Vincent

Find true love from victoria vincent on Vimeo.

Victoria Vincent's short animated film titled 'Find True Love' depicts a characters failings at online dating and captures the pitfalls of the search for love online. Vincent describes this video as a way of portraying 'this kind of strange emotional connection we have with the internet in a light-hearted movie'.

"Despite the anonymity that the internet grants it's users, there is still anxiety that comes with trying to connect with people online. We google questions we dont know how to ask other people and face anxiety over sending/recieving messages. It's something that I think every internet user can relate to." - Victoria Vincent for It's Nice That

Throughout the video, we see the protagonist battle with his anxieties over contacting this girl that he's found via a tinder-esque platform. Overlapping shots of text boxes and action represent the inner turmoil faced when trying to figure out how to correctly message this girl, and this turmoil is further heightened when she doesn't reaply, with humorous google searches leaving the protagonist wondering if he's destined for a life in solitude. The animation ends with him being blocked by said girl. In a way, this shows how disconnected interactions online actually are. Somebody has the power to completley cut off a point of communication in what could be seen as quite a cold-hearted way. There is no consideration for the recipricant of the 'block', furthing showing the emotional disocnnection we face whilst using online services.


kittykat96 from victoria vincent on Vimeo.

Inspired by the world of vlogging and Youtube stars, Vincents newest animation "kittykat96" documents the life of an 'internet famous girl' whose online persona comes to life as a seperate entity to her physical self. The two entities are further blurred and tensions is heightened, despite the protagonists use of keyboard commands such as undo, delete and escape to rid herself of this physical manifestation of her online self. The film questions our obsessions with the internet and how our online personas are just curated versions of ourselves.

"I wanted to think of a way to show how the protagonist would see that she couldnt live entirley as her internet persona or entirley without it" - Victoria Vincent for It's Nice That

This animation brings to light the idea of true self vs real self vs hoped for self, an idea proposed by Sherry Turkle in her book 'Alone Together'. Through use of different social media platforms, we purposley curate our accounts to portray an appealing side to us. Everyday life is filtered through to a highlight reel, showing only the impressive or positive parts of our lives, where as the more negative and dull parts will be filtered out. We are never truly ourselves. The different versions of ourselves we portray must come together to give an over-arching image of who we really are as a person.

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/victoria-vincent-kittykat96-animation-121017
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/victoria-vincent-find-true-love-260916

Start of Practical Responses

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While I've been waiting to collect responses to the survey I thought it best to start some simple visual responses to my research so far. These images are made to be intended to be posted on Social Networking Sites in order to get people to think about how much time they spend online and how this may impact their actual relationships, with themselves and with others. I've been enjoying just drawing around this theme alot, and picking out bits of my research to focus in on. I'm looking to expand on this kind of imagery a little more later in the project.

The Internet Is Not The Answer - Andrew Keen

"But today, as the internet expands to connect almost every-one and everything on the planet, it's becoming evident that this is a false promise." (preface)

" 'Instagram is focused on capturing the worlds moments,' System likes to say. But thats fiction - just like Instagram itself" (pg.104)

"Advertisements for Myself" - Norman Mailer - 1959

"Indeed, the only thing more retro than Instagrams filters is the pre-Copernican belief, encouraged by social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, that the new digital universe somehow revolves around us. Fuzzy technology leads to an even fuzzier sense of our place in the cosmos." (pg.105)

"In the Valley, the rich and famous claim to be failures; on social networks like Instagram, millions of failures claim to be rich and famous." (pg.105)

"The truth about networks like Instagram, Twitter or Facebook is that their easy-to-use, free tools delude us into thinking we are celebrities." (pg.105) narcissism

"epidemic of narcissism and voyeurism" (pg.106)

"our contemporary obsession with public self-expression has complex cultural, technological and psychological origins that can't be exclusively traced to the digital revolution" (pg.106)

Twenge and Campbell - Narcissism Epidemic

"Instagram is a useful symbol of everything that has gone wrong with our digital culture over the last quarter of a century. "I update, therefore I am," I once wrote, half jokingly, about the existential dilemma created by our obsession with social media. Unfortunately, however, the idea that our existence is proven by our tweets or our Instagram moments is no longer very funny." (pg.107)

"if we have no thought to Tweet or photo to post, we basically cease to exist" (pg.107)

"the shameless self portrait has emerged as a dominant mode of expression, perhaps even the proof of  our existence, in the digital age." (pg.107)

"The real myth is that we are communicating at all. The truth, of course, is that we are mostly just talking to ourselves on these supposedly 'social' networks" (pg.109)

Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites - Ben Light

- Concerned with disconnection as something that we do in conjuction with connection
- Theory of Disconnective Practice
- Agree with Boyd (idea of networked publics)
- SNS's are a space where we interact with each other - intimatley interwoven
- 'SNS's are engaged as a space in their own right and some people may never connect the relationships that they develop in those spaces with those in the physical world'

Proffessor Ben Light agrees with boyd's idea of networked publics and states that 'SNSs are engaged as a space in their own right' (Light, 2014). Light further comments on how the relationships and connections found within these spaces may never be developed in the physical world, instead remaining online.

Communication and Cyberspace - Creating Paradoxes for the Ecology of Self - Sue Barnes

"In traditional physical environments, a concept of self is developed through face-to-face encounters with other people and objects. In contrast, cyberspace interaction takes place symbolically in a media-generated space." (pg.230)

"The self that exists as a unified mind and body in a physical space becomes a seperate and distributed digital self. This new digital self encounters paradoxical situations in cyberspace that could threaten the ecological self that inhabits a natural world." (pg.230)

"It is a 'non-space', a hyperdimensional realm that we enter through technology." (pg.231)

"An individual self is established by organizing the attitudes of other individuals toward the self and toward one another through participation in social interaction." (pg.240)

"Thus, by understanding the role of others, we can develop our own individual roles and consequently a sense of self." (pg.240)

"Monist theories of self argue that the physical body is an integral part of self-development. Touching, feeling, and having access to all five senses is essential to interacting with objects and people. According to this perspective, a separation of mind and body in cyberspace will inhibit self-growth. Therefore, integrating the physical body with the digital representation of self in cyberspace would be essential for developing self-identity." (pg.240)

"On the one hand, eliminating the body makes us more equal because we no longer have access to the visual information of sex, age, or race. But on the other hand, the quality of human relationships narrows, because unlike face-to-face communication, we do not have a full range of visual and verbal sensory information" (pg.247)

"People can now communicate and develop relationships without ever meeting each other in a face-to-face situation" (pg.247)

"The formation of symbolic or virtual communities raises the issue of how people will develop a self-identity when they communicate through electronic media instead of face-to-face interaction" (pg.247)

"electronic media is fragmenting self-conceptions. In electronic media "the self is decentered, dispersed, and multiplied in continuous instability" (Poster, 1960, pg 6). Gergen (1991) describes this condition as the "saturated self": "the evening at home once quiet, relaxed and settling, is now - by dint of telephone, automobile, television and the like - a parade of faces, information and intrusion" (pg.248)

"Additionally, a myriad of electronic relationships can invite 'us to play such a variety of roles that the very concept of an 'authentic self' with knowable characteristics recedes from view" (Gergen, 1991, pg 7)" (pg.248)

"The lack of personal visual information in network exchanges allows people to test new personalities and even create totally fictitious ones." (pg.248)

"To summarize, Poster (1990) states when computer communication replaces face-to-face communication the subject is affected in the following ways: (a) new possibilites for playing with identities is possible, (b) gender cues are removed, (c) existing hierachies in relationships are destablized, and (d) the subject is dispersed and dislocated in space and time." (pg.249)


Additional references:
Gibson, W. (1991). Academy leader. In M. BEnedikt (Ed.) Cyberspace: First steps (pp.27-29). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Poster, M (1990). The mode of information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966) The social construction of reality. New York: Anchor Books.

500 Word Summary - No.2

As my research is developing I am gaining more of an insight into my subject matter and starting to be able to narrow down what exactly it is that I want to look at. I’ve been reading about the psychological impact that over use of social media can have and how this affects our ability to develop interpersonal relationships. I’ve also done further research on the idea of ‘self’ and discovered the idea of multiple versions of ‘self’ and how we create fictitious identities online in order to put across an image that is more socially appealing online. I have also established the idea of social networking sites as ‘networked publics’ a term coined by Danah Boyd. ‘Networked Publics’ explore the idea of social networking sites as spaces in their own right, and spaces that have taken over real-life social meeting points. I feel that from the research done I can start to develop some structure to my essay, knowing that networked publics and the idea of self combine and have a direct impact on how we develop interpersonal relationships. These will be the three areas I specifically focus in on when writing my essay: Networked Publics and Online Spaces, Presentation of the Self and Self Disclosure, and finally, Development of Interpersonal Relationships.

In terms of case studies, I have done some research into practitioners that convey emotion through their work and also different examples of how social media has ben explored via illustration. I’m particularly interested in Victoria Vincents work, finding that her practice encompasses online culture and the conveying of emotion in an authentic and honest way. This aligns to my own interests, and allows room to examine how a practitioner is responding to the problems with social media on a level that delves more into the personal experience of being online rather than looking at the impact of online culture on society as a whole.

When considering my own practical work, I feel that at the minute the idea of self-presentation is something that intrigues me, as well as self-disclosure. I find it interesting that people can be so open and honest online when hiding behind a mask and yet struggle disclosing information in their real life relationships. From the questionnaire I put out, I’m hoping to get enough responses to create a small zine type publication in order to explore my themes. I have also been doing some general visual responses in order to explore my subject area more, and feel that some of these could become images that are made to be posted online in order to get people thinking about how they behave around social networking sites.

Research into Practitioners

Whilst researching into practitioners I've been trying to avoid the usual editorial type of illustration that this topic is usually covered by. It's not to my taste and I feel that it's a bit over done. Instead, I've tried finding imagery that contains some kind of emotion, humour or is executed in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Christopher Delorenzo

Eduardo Salles

Brian Rea

Natalie Foss

Brecht Vandenbroucke

Victoria Vincent

Victoria Vincent 

After looking into different examples of illustrative practice that examine my topic, I am particularly drawn to the work of Victoria Vincent. Her work has a very personal, authentic quality, and a strong sense of anrrative that runs throughout the majority of her work. As well as Illustration, she also animates her narratives and I have found two so far that align perfectly with the contexts and themes behind my essay. Her animation 'Find True Love' examines communcation and online dating, whilst her other animation 'kittykat96' explores presentation of the self online and the idea of multiple versions of self.

IPC - Richard West, Lynn H.Turner

- self-disclosure allows relationships to develop and contributes to strengthening self-concept
- greater disclosure = greater emotional involvement in a relationship
- relationships are closer when something personal is shared
- interpersonal - relating to relationships or communication between people
- acquaintence, build-up stage, continuation, deterioration, termination
- intimacy - self-disclosure, love and affection, personal validation, trust
- online communication - laziness, ease of use, privay, ability to have multiple conversations, multi-task, substitute for face-to-face
- some studies found that internet interactions were viewed as inferior to face-to-face
- verbal cues - words that are spoken or typed - non-verbal cues - tone of voice, body language
- conversation fluency may be more difficult to maintain online - slower than speaking
- internet allows for deception but anonyminity allows for self-disclosure
- true self is more accessible after an online interaction
- emoticons make up for lack of non verbal cues - clarification of ambiguous statements - mitigate negative messages - flirt -avatars also replace non-verbal cues
- some people who feel shyness in face-to-face interactions are more comfortable in online interaction due to anonyminity - increased intimacy in internet socializing
- high social phobia scores correlate with the use of the internet to regulate social fears - extrovert vs introvert

Carl R. Rogers - A Therapists View On Psychotherapy - On Becoming A Person

"Real communication occurs and this evaluative tendency is avoided, when we listen with understanding" - pg 331 - Empathy

"It means to see the expressed ideas from the other persons point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about" - pg 332

The Existential Choice

"Do I dare to communicate myself as I am or must my communication be somewhat less than or different from this?" pg 345

"The sharpness of this issue lies in the often vividly forseen possibility of threat or rejection. To communicate ones full awareness of the relevant experience is a risk to interpersonal relationships." pg 345

In his book "On Becoming A Person" Carl Rogers argues that real communication can only be achieve when we listen from an empathetic viewpoint, that we cannot truly communicate until we begin to 'see the expressed ideas from the other persons point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about' (Rogers, 2004, pg 332).
Continue this excert with reference to evidence of social networking making us less empathic and thus less likely to be communicating effectivley and efficiently

Correlating to previous discussion on the 'real' self, Rogers also brings about the idea of the 'existential choice', the choice we all have to communicate ourselves as we are or to filter what we allow others to see of ourselves. The very real fear of threat and rejection that encourages us to communicate from behind screens is a result of not wanting to show our 'real selves' in case the 'real self' is met with an unempathetic, judging point of view as a pose to an understanding, empathic listener.
Links with real/true self exploration, pyschological asymmetry

Questionnaire - Anonymous Confessions

A lot of my research into my chosen area has looked at the idea of anonymity, different versions of self and self-disclosure. I think it could be quite interesting to try take my practical work in this direction. People are more likely to disclose personal infomation online about themselves as they have a different kind of identity to hide behind, this leaves them feeling less at risk of rejection/embarassment when they disclose highly personal infomation about themselves. I ahve devised a simple questionnaire to explore this topic. The two questions will be as follows:

1. Confess something anonymously
2. Would you have made the same confession if the questionnaire wasn't anonymous. Explain your answer.

I will be posting the link to the questionnaire to a variety of social netowrking sites as this is what my dissertation is focused around. I will collate the results once I feel I have enough responses and begin to make work in result of that. At the moment I feel that some kind of publication format would work best, possibly a zine. This will be decided later on once the results have been collected.

Further Revised Research Question

I previously wrote a list of potential questions to explore and investigate for my research project, most were broad and quite vague but I've narrowed my list down to a selection of 4 questions. I think my question is still a while away from being finalised in terms of wording and figuring out how exactly I'm going to phrase things but the four options I've narrowed it down to all have the same underlying theme, they are as follows:

- Why are we comfortable expressing human emotion online but struggle with face-to-face interactions?
- To what extent does social media impact the way we interact with each other?
- What effect does social media have on day-to-day social skills/social interactions
- How does social media impact how we develop interpersonal relationships?

I know these are still vague and not well structured but I feel like they're all similar in a way and with further research I'll be able to further narrow down my options and begin expanding and forming my final proposed research question.

The School of Life - How To Live More Wisely Around Our Phones

How To Live More Wisely Around Our Phones - http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-to-live-more-wisely-around-our-phones/

- there's almost no relationship in which the presence of the phone has not had a profound effect
- addiction
- monasticism - distraction - wall-off instantly alluring and most meaningless distractions offered by the wider world
- digital sabbath - engage directly with others, be relaxed, immersed in nature and present
- look things up inside yourself - give ideas time and attention - 'In the minds of geniuses we discover our own neglected thoughts' Ralph Waldo Emerson
- our phones and our relationships - malleability provides the perfect excuse for disengagement from the trickier aspects of other people
- dating - everyone is radically imperfect, compatibility is an achievement of love, it can't be its precondition - cannot help with the real challenge of love - extending sympathy and understanding to human frailty
- nature and the sublime - we are forgetting (as we update) what nature - quietly and with great and tender majesty - might really have been trying to say to us
- stimulation vs calm - our most urgent need is for calm - we react to stimuli even when we're exhausted - phones are endless carriers of claims to rouse us when what we really need is exactly the opposite
- shopping - purchasing ambitions are focused only at the lower level of our own pyramid of needs (reference image within article)
- beyond instagram - we need to make ourselves pay attention - our ease of which we can create an image works against our desire to properly notice anything - put down the phone and sketch
- appreciation - phones deliver the world directly to us yet often limit the things we actually pay attention to
- poetry - brevity to vacuity, serious ideas must be transmitted in long and challenging texts - this is an educated delusion - you can conjure the deepest, sweetest and saddest truths in a few words - brief media to say big important thing
- news - modern idea of news is falsely and unflattering - it imagines we need to know everything thats happened in the world - really important news is just everything that is crucial for us to take in order to understand our own world and our place in it
- FOMO - its not the notion of missing out thats the problem, its ideas of what we might be missing out on - phones unhelpfully skew this
- the dream of being liked - we might know plenty of people but others never quite know us as we wish to be known - loneliness is simply a price we have to pay for holding onto a sincere ambitious view of what companionship must and could be
- travel - while our phones can record and reveal to others the half-formed thoughts circulating our mind they cannot as yet bring our submerged reactions to the surface
- play - the unexpected intensity of fooling around with a normally staid and measured acquaintance - as we play, we forget to cheque our phones 
- selfies - tempting to think we should take them less seriously - distance ourselves from it and see it in a mocking light - but the wiser move might be to get much more ambitious - self-reflection - not seeking the approval of others but seeking self-knowledge
- communication - technology annihilates physical but not psychological, distance - our words move infinitely faster than a carrier pigeon or a scroll bearing slave but we are as yet no better at explaining ourselves than we were in early history
- death - we use our phones for constant reminders - there are more important appointments to be reminded of - appointments with ourselves, our worries and not the anxieties that they create - brevity sadly is the key to appreciation - it is when we remember death that we understand properly the urgency of the time we have left 

- utopia - still so far from technology that will really help us advance - capitalism has delivered on only our simplest of needs - primitive times - in the future our phones will be kind and not merely subservient - they will know how to edge us away from a stupid decision and how to summon up our better natures

The School Of Life - Videos

The School of Life is a global organisation dedicated to developing emotional intelligence using pyschology, philosophy, culture and everyday life. Via their Youtube channel, I've found some short animations relating to my COP project aswell as some short articles on their website. The videos are documented below whilst the articles will be documented in a seperate blog post in order for me to be able to refer back to them a little easier.

The Dangers of The Internet: 

- addiction - checking phones ahead of interpersonal communication 

- we know too much and understand too little 

- privacy is under threat

- online crime is out of control 

- unrivalled challenges on how to interact with our partners, keep our critical faculties alive, stop thinking that the answers always lie 'out there', remain emotionally connected to real life people, make discoveries that come when we are bored and letting our mind lie fallow 

The Problem with our Phones: 

- used to keep our own selves at bay 

- incapable of sitting alone with our thoughts 

- self-avoidance 

- consult phones rather than ourselves

- we must spend time with our worries rather than the anxiety they create 

- 'remember you are made of dust and will be dust again' 

Why We Feel Lonely and Odd 

- know ourselves from the inside, know others from what they chose to or are able to tell us - limited, edited - like how we present ourselves on social media 

- knowing people through public pronouncments (idea of 'perfect lives')

- physiological asymmetry - think of ourselves as more peculiar and shameful than others 

- our emotions and experiences are more intense, we know alot more about who we are 

- results in loneliness and shyness, feeling inherintly different to everyone else 

- easily intimidated by people we assume cannot share in our vulnerabilities 

- feel like imposters in positions of power

- solutions lie in art and love 

- art allows for accurate portrayls of the inner lives of strangers

- love allows for occassional deeply precious sense of security - learn about yours and other vulnerabilities 

- we must presume that everyone is closer to what we are, than they are to resemble the personas they show to the world 

Mind Change: How Digital Technologies Are Leaving Their Mark On Our Brains - Susan Greenfield

Social Networking and Identity:

- hyper-connectivity (constant connection), spread of social media, increase in online personal information - key factors which will interact to influence identities
- online self and 'true self' are not necessarily the same - 'true self' notion introduced by Carl Rogers - one of the founding fathers of physchotherapy
- John Bargh - concept of 'true self on the internet' - individuals tendencys to refer express real aspects of the self through anonymous platforms rather than face-to-face communication - the internet provides individuals with a unique opportunity for self-expression that encourages people to reveal their true self, including the aspects which are not comfortably expressed face-to-face - cyber communication could be regarded as more intimate and personal
- Erving Goffman (sociologist) described how in general we are always alert to how others react to us, continuously adpating our outward demeanour to ensure the best possible image - editing, curating
- Social networking has now resulted in three possible selves: the true self, the real self, and the hoped-for/possible self displayed on social networking sites - deliberatley constructed, socially desirable self to which individuals aspire but have not yet been able achieve
- advertise yourself unchallenged by the constraints of the real world
- dangerous gap could grow between the idealised 'front stage' you and the real 'back stage' you, leading to a feeling of disconnection and isolation
- exaggerated obsession with the self - narcissits (link to turkle) - social networking can demonstrably increase narcissism levels - exhibitionism, entitlement, exploitativeness, superiority, authority, vanity - such behaviour is linked to low self-esteem
- 'perfect' lives - people long desperatley for others to notice and interact with them - encourages the hoped-for/possible self
- 'if you see other people also as commodities for enhancing your percieved significance still further, you will be incapable of having the kind of human relatiosnhio essential for well-being'
- envy caused by self-comparison - decreased life satisfaction
- Klout Scores - social media scores that could become an 'ingredient' in job interviews
- The fact that importance is measured through social networking, that it depends on how much attention you attract and that this attention can be rewarded, is unlikely to bring out the best in anyone. What kind of lesson are you learning about relationships and indeed how you see yourself?
- Quitting social media has been termed 'virtual identity suicide'
- 'Social media removes evolutionary precautions and presses the accelerator on unfettered self-disclosure in a context where the usual brakes applied by normal interpersonal feedback are absent'
- self is publicised to an audience of hundres and held up to endless scrutiny and coment


Social Networking and Relationships
- new technology has fundamentally changed the way that we communication - we're not required to talk to each other
- verbal communication over the phone or in person has become increasingly less popular
- the type of emotional support that can be provided by these forms of communication turns out to be very inferior
- conversations over the phone or in person shown to indicate a reduction in stress levels - in regard to providing emotional support, messaging appears comparable to not speaking with anyone at all
- instead of body language, tone of voice and physical contact, the dominant vehicle for expression is words  - misinterpretation - no matter how much you discuss your emotions, statements can't live up to true facial expressions
- interpersonal interaction is not sufficiently rehearsed - lacking in social skills
- Digital Natives - struggle to communicate face-to-face, shifted the development of romantic relationships online, couples prefer to get to know each other through the safety of their smartphones - Using the internet to make friends is linked to lower levels of well-being
- Development of interpersonal communication skills and empathy - ability to empathise with others keeps maturing well into our twenties
- 'emotional intelligence' - the ability, capacity, skill or a self-percieved ability to identify, assess and manage the emotions of ones self, of others and of groups
- correlation between soaring popularity of social networking sites and the decline in empathy
- reduced ability to communicate effectivley, associated with a lack of emotional intelligence, including poor performance on interpreting facial expressions
- deficits in the early stage of face-perception processing, impairment linked to a range of disorders including physcopathy and autism - possible associations between technology use and the later development of autism
- difference between online and offline relationships is that in the former you only show what you want, often cataloguing what you like and dislike
- cannot successfully hide what you may truly be feeling in a face-to-face situation with a friend - lack of rehersal of social skills may foretell a decline in deep and meaningful relationships - trust grows from empathy - miss out on deeper intimacy with others
- too much social networking can cross the line into interpersonal dysfunction and damage, displace time spent on relationship maintenance, lead to increased opportunity to communicate with ex-partners or potential partners, leads to jealousy and tempation in current relationships
- high levels of facebook use were associated with negative reationship outcomes, leading to cheating, break-ups and divorce - increased paranoia and jealousy
- continuing offline contact with an ex-romantic partner may disrupt emotional recovery  - social media disrupts the process of healing and moving on from past relationships - unhealthy perseveration - lower personal growth easily accesible and difficult to resist infomation
- snooping on individuals is not only allowed but expected - stalking has been coined as 'social surveillance' - ability to pry freely and anonymously into the lives of others is a serious issue
- such sites are having a significant impact on interpersonal communication and hence relationships - there will be wider percussions for society as a whole

Keith Negley

Tricky subjects, soft colour palettes, varied textures, quiet melancholy, meditations on lonliness and suffering

- crucial to be fearless
- dont be afraid to be vulnerable to your audience
- our deepest darkest secrets make the best art
- if the thought of sharing work with an audience makes you feel uncomfortable, you're on the right track

Teen Suicide

Philosophy of the Heart

The Family That Preys Together

COP Re-Think

I've been struggling alot with figuring out the link between practice and context and how this is going to work in terms of my dissertation. Anyhow, over the weekend it kind of clicked and I think what I've been trying to get at (in terms of practical work) is how emotion is conveyed through illustration.

Still a bit vague and I've left COP alone for a while as it was stressing me out, but tomorrow I'm going to pull all my ideas and thoughts together and figure out what exactly's going on so I can go to my tutorial later this week with a more refined plan of action. 

500 Word Summary No.1

So far into this project, I must admit I’m struggling a little bit. I think the change of direction late on into the research part of this module has left me at a bit of a disadvantage in that I’m very aware I don’t have a lot of time to pull all of this together. Nevertheless, I have been thoroughly enjoying my research this far and have discovered some key starting points as well as having more thoughts on how to further my research.

From reading Sherry Turkle's 'Alone Together' I have started to realise key points of interest. I'm looking more in the direction of how social media and online spaces impact our ability to communicate with each other on a face-to-face level. How does this impact our relationships with other people? Why do we feel more comfortable communicating feeling and emotion through a screen as a pose to face-to-face conversations? I think this is something that I want to continue researching into, as it’s an element of Illustrative practice that I’m interested in, in terms of how human experience and emotion can be communicated through image. I feel that it links back to my own practice, I enjoy emotionally driven work, I enjoy things that are personal and feel that I process my own thoughts and feelings through work I create, as do many others. In this sense, in terms of the practical element of this module, I feel that my chosen research topic will suit my interests in emotionally driven illustration and help me develop my own practice further in this way.

Additionally, from reading Danah Boyd’s It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens’, I’ve had insight into counter arguments to some of Turkles statements. I think it will be interesting to further read up on both sides of this argument, although at this point my personal stance on the topic would be that over-use of Social Media can lead to a feeling of disconnection and isolation rather than actually bringing people closer together. I also believe that people spend way too much time online, maybe this is something that I should aim my practical work towards, in that I could create images that aim to promote people spending less time online? I’m also quite interested in looking at the idea of self presentation online and feel that this could also be interesting too explore through my work.

In terms of practical work I still need to do more research and see what already exists and how other practitioners might be dealing with the issue. I also want to look into emotionally driven illustration, and try find work that has a sense of human authenticity behind it. My question is yet to be formulated but I feel that this will fall into place a little more as my research furthers.

Key points so far:

- the idea of connection and disconnection
- emotionally driven/honest/authentic imagery

- self presentation
- social relationships
- communication