'Social media accomplishes the rudimentary and because of this we reduce our expectations of each other'
'With constant connection comes new anxieties of disconnection' Life online becomes life itself
New experience of place - 'What is a place if those who are physically present have their attention on the absent'
Face-to-face communication is routinley interruputed by texts/calls/notifications - Do you ever really have a persons attention? Do you ever really pay attention?
'If it is always possible to be in touch, when does one have the right to be alone'
Connectivity brings complications - sustain and constrain
- Sharing a feeling is a deliberate act, a movement towards intimacy
- Technology supports an emotional style in which feelings are not fully experienced until they are communicated - 'gold standard of autonomy'
- Uneasy to text/message about feelings as there's a possibility of no response - validation becomes part of establishing an emotion
Narcissism traditionally indicates people with a personality so fragile that it needs constant support - this can also be supported by selected and limited contact with people - contact lists make people appear on demand - take what you need and move on, if not gratified, you can try someone else
Social media asks us to represent ourselves in simplified ways and comform to those simplifications - spend more time perfecting an online persona
At a screen you feel protected and less burdened by expectations - although you're alone, the potential for instantaneous contact gives an encourgaing feeling of already being together
Shortcuts for actual social interactions
If you send fond feelings or appriciation digitally, you protext yourself from a cool reception - One of the emotional affordances of digital communication is that one can always hide behind deliberate nonchalonce
Present yourself as you wish to be seen - Proccess people as quickly as you want to
It is not unsuaul for people to feel more comfortable in an unreal place than a real one - they feel that they show their better and maybe truer self
Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - The mental state in which a person is fully immersed in an activity with focus and involvment - Flow state = clear expectations, attainable goals
Concentrate on a limited field so the anxiety dissipates and you feel fully present - In a flow state you are able to act without self-consciousness
If lonely you can find continual connection. But this may leave you more isolated without real people around you. So you may return to the internet for another hit of what feels like connection - 'consumed by that which we were nourished by' Shakespeare
Connectivity becomes a craving - when we recieve an email/text our nervous system responds by giving us a shot of dopamine - stimulated by connectivity, we learn to require it even when it depletes us
Not having your phone is a high level of stress - anxiety is part of the new connectivity - all consuming efforts to keep up appearances
Texting is too seductive - instantly contactable, instantly viewable - But who says we always have to be ready to communicate? - Longed for here is the pleasure of full attention, coveted and rare - Technology is associated with shared attention
Texting has evolved into a space for confessions, breakups, and declarations of love - all matters are crammed into a medium that quickly communicates a state but is not well suited for opening up a dialogue about the complexity of feelings - Texting compromises that intimacy it promises
We defend connectivity as a way to be close even as we effectivley hide from each other - loneliness is failed solitude
Lack of empathy with the availability of social media - Have to find a way to live with an addictive technology and make it work to our purpose - we are drawn to connections that seem low risk and always at hand - Simplification and reduction of a relationship is no longer something we complain about, it becomes what we expect and what we desire - It is time to look towards the virtues of solitude, deliberateness and living fully in the moment
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 what I'm interested in anyway - 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.
Need to do more research and read more books and try pin this down further.
No comments:
Post a Comment