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It is safe to say that I have invaluably wasted a substantial part of my life on StumbleUpon. It has constantly been on in the background and has been a great procrastination tool in my last few weeks of Uni. Type in a topic and ;Stumble’ through unlimited wed searches from pictures of Puppies to recipes to the ever enticing random. 

It’s times like these that I love the internet but hate my own will power. It is too easy to be distracted, with too much pointless information that I need in my life.

Here are some of my favourite stumbles this week:

Topic searched: Baby Animals

The internet is full of important information.

‘The Facebook Effect’ has gained worldwide success as the biography of Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg’s creation of facebook. This is clearly an area of interest for many people, with the book later being made into a film - renamed “The Social Network”. KIRKPATRICK, D., 2010. The Facbook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. USA: Simon & Schuster, Inc. 
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‘The Facebook Effect’ has gained worldwide success as the biography of Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg’s creation of facebook. This is clearly an area of interest for many people, with the book later being made into a film - renamed “The Social Network”.

KIRKPATRICK, D., 2010. The Facbook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. USA: Simon & Schuster, Inc. 

One Million Voices Against FARC

Colombian Oscar Morales created a Facebook group against FARC that led to an international protest movement.

In 2008, Oscar Morales, a Colombian national took a simple online step which would have major unforeseen implications throughout Colombia. On the 4th of January 2008 Morales set up a public Facebook page protesting against the control and power the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( nationally known as FARC) had over the Colombian population.

Established in the early 1960s FARC has gained a global reputation as one of the largest and most capable insurgencies in Latin America with control of over half of the cocaine trade of Colombia. In 2008 they had a known total of 700 hostages including Colombian presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt and Emmanuel Rojas who was born whilst his mother was held captive. 

Morales’ Facebook page was simple, stating,

  • no more kidnappings,
  • no more lies,
  • no more killings,
  • no more FARC.

The page quickly gained strength, securing  100,00 members within its first week and leading  to the organization of over 200 rallies around the world.

Through the use of Facebook, on the 4th of February, Morales organised a nationwide protest which gained international support with 1.5 million people protesting in Bogota alone.

The success of this campaign began on Facebook and spread through other media platforms and is now seen as one of Facebook’s success stories and is even the prologue for David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect, the biography of Facebook’s creation.   

 

When the internet started to become a more mainstream technology in the mid 1990s MIT Professor Sherry Turkle was one of its foremost cheerleaders. Turkle saw the internet as a means to explore different aspects of ourselves and that we would use ‘what we learnt in the virtual worlds about ourselves - our identities - to live better lives  in the real world’. In Turkle’s  book ‘Life on the Screen: Identity in the age of internet’ (1995) access to the internet was seen as a huge benefit to the populous, giving people the ability to create multiple identities virtually to help them grow in reality.

Nearly 20 years on, Turkle begins a talk with ‘getting a text is like getting a hug’, but how true can this statement truly be? It is true that receiving a text, facebook message, retweet etc is always nice and there is always a feeling of connection when people show that they are thinking about you and that they care about what you have posted or shared or commented on. But does this really rival ‘real’ interaction? People get worried that they have insulted you if you don’t end a text with an x but would you ‘kiss’ someone after every sentence/statement/question in reality? If you don’t reply instantly to a text you are ignoring them by choice. If they really needed a response immediately why didn’t they call? Or better yet, ask you in person? They are probably only on the other side of the room.

This constant need to be in contact with people has become a key topic for Sherry Turkle’s research into our relationship with digital media. Her 2011 book ‘Alone Together’ presents issues of our growing inability to be alone, we are always ‘on’, always ‘plugged-in’ somehow. Most people will admit to sleeping with their mobile and nowadays that means constant access to all media platforms not just the basic send and receive of a text or a call. We are talking about continuous access to worldwide live-feed news; we will get a ‘ding’ on our phone in the middle of the night and it will probably be that girl instagramming another picture of a pug in a cowboy outfit or better yet dressed up like a pug, important stuff.

We are never alone. And if you choose to be ‘offline’ you are considered abnormal. You don’t have facebook? Why? You turn your phone off when you are sleeping? But what if someone wants to contact you?

Our mobile devices hold such great psychological power that they are actually changing who we are. When you only have 10% battery life left this feels like it is actually you who only has 10% battery left. I must get to a charger and restore my life before it runs out, how will I survive an hour without my phone?! What if Justin Beiber tweets something and I miss it? To our grandparents or even to us just ten years ago this would be considered so odd and disturbing, but, it has quickly become normal to the ‘online’ masses. Every lunch is now a ‘working lunch’ with emails sent directly to your phone which you would never leave in the office and making eye contact whilst still texting is seen as a highly  valuable skill.

At my family Easter dinner this year, 4 generations sat and debated the values of facebook with my grandmother showing my great-grandmother her profile. This is clearly becoming a crisis. We cannot get enough of each other but virtual communication is given more weight than real-time, face-to-face conversation. We prefer to text than to call, we would rather send an email to our colleague then turn our chair and ask them the question directly. This morning I had a conversation with my flatmate which solely comprised of emoticons and punctuation?! She was in the room next to me! We want to connect but not in person, not directly, and not in a way that we can’t edit ourselves, re-read what we are going to say, check it, change it and re-phrase it to get our point across most effectively. True, this seems ideal and highly efficient, but where’s the conversation? How are we developing relationships with people when we only say the bare minimum of what is needed to be said and often this is disjointed and inaudible.

We’re damaging relationships by ‘cleaning’ them with technology. Sacrificing true communication for edited, impersonal technology. Connecting in this way does not work for forging real-life relationships, if we can’t converse with each other, how can we converse with ourselves?

 

#CutForBieber

At the beginning of this year ‘trolling’ and ‘trending’ hit a new low with the #CutForBieber going global. Through the use of several dummy accounts trolls were able to cause an online epidemic were ‘Beliebers’ were persuaded to ‘Cut for Bieber’ to show their outrage at the allegations of him smoking weed. One such dummy account tweeted ‘You stop using drugs and we’ll stop cutting. You make this world meaningless and we’ve lost hope’ @brittanyscrapma. This hashtag resulted in several photos of girls cutting themselves to pop-up on twitter and caused outrage worldwide.

The fact that this actually happened is astonishing, both that someone would think of the idea in the first place and that people would actually be crazy enough to do it. Trolling is an obvious issue for social media but is increasing with most people admitting to ‘fraping’ their friends on facebook and not seeing it as bullying or anything bad. The fact that you can write something from the comfort of your home without being seen or having to justify or be responsible for your actions is perhaps a major selling point for the internet. So why are people still falling for it? Trolls are an issue, but they are a small movement; 37.8 million Beliebers is a substantial force to be reckoned with.

Groupies come with the territory for young male singers and if they are in a band this is just multiplied. A superfan would die for the chance to be part of their favourite artist’s life and social media only fuels this, allowing fans constant access.

With such a force on twitter, Bieber has been likened to Obama in power, this can only be seen as worrying if we believe news reports of  Bieber antics and look at some of the twitter accounts of his adoring followers.

Come on guys, it’s What Would Jesus Do NOT What Would Justin Do.

#sandwichvan

Earlier this year a local Aberdonian receptionist went viral on Twitter with the #Sandwich Van trending, not only locally, but throughout the UK. 

This was caused by a private email conversation between the receptionist and her fianceaccidently being forwarded to her entire work when she sent a group email to her colleagues announcing the arrival of the sandwich van.

This has caused major offline implications for the couple who have both lost their jobs due to their indiscretion whilst using their work emails, where they provided detailed accounts of their sex life.

This email was forwarded to me by someone in England who had received it from their colleague and so on, highlighting issues with social interaction on digital media as having limited privacy and security. It also shows a general weakness for gossip, with people continuously forwarding the email with no regard for the feelings of the couple involved.

Having said that, if anyone wants to see the email send me a message and I will be happy to forward it to you; after all, they were stupid enough to write it all in an email. 

In Censorship We Trust

So far I have focused on the impacts of sharing our information, but, for much of the population there are barriers to what information they can actually access online. It’s all fine and well being able to post about yourself, but for some it is not possible to find certain information or share certain views.

In some situations this is a protective measure enforced by the government to prevent people from accessing harmful, illegal or ethically unsound information, such as ‘how tos’ on making dirty bombs or child pornography. In these circumstances there is often a general consensus of acceptance in that searching for this information will be difficult, if not impossible and is seen as a reasonable measure. For many these are seen as positive barriers, protecting them from unsavoury or elicit content whilst online. 

However, for some these barriers are more intense and strongly enforced, with whole continents banned from accessing content that is otherwise available elsewhere, for instance, Facebook in China. This government-enforced censorship is constantly questioned and can often be seen as extreme and overly controlling with these governments going to great lengths to prevent people from accessing certain information.

Commonly known as the “Great firewall of China”, political censorship is heavily built-in to China’s internet infrastructure, focusing on the movement of global information into China. This can be seen at its most powerful in 2003 where China were able to cover-up an outbreak of SARS for 5 months. During this time China kept the outbreak quiet to the outside world and toned it down to much of the Chinese population.

This raises serious questions as to whether China is within its rights preventing access to information, especially if it is going to affect global issues. 

In 2010, a new documentary-film Catfish brought major issues with online relationships to the front of our minds. A film tracking the online relationship between Dev and Megan presented the idea of how easily ‘visually detailed’ reality can be made on the internet. Megan is a musician/dancer living in Michigan with a whole facebook profile which allows Dev to get to know her. But, it turns out that Megan doesn’t actually exist.

This links with Professor Sherry Turkle’s early ideas of how the internet can be used to create virtual identities of ourselves that aspire to who we want to be. But, in modern use of social media this is seen as disgraceful and deceitful. Our social media pages are an extension of our real lives, they shouldn’t be faked. This is why Dev never thought that Megan wouldn’t be real and jumped into an intense online relationship with her where he never found it odd that they never spoke on webcam or in real life.