Blog #2


After reading the story of Kathrine Pommerening, the theme that sticks out to me comes from statements like, “Katherine wants to get better at her phone.” My question from this is, who is determining the success level of using one’s phone? The phone does not come with a manual of how to successfully post on Instagram or how to get a high level of interaction, therefore there must be other factors.
Under Baym’s chapter 2 section ‘Social construction of technology’ she expresses the idea that, “the communication about the technology becomes more important than the technologies in shaping the uses and effects of new media.” (Baym, 2015: 47) I believe this statement to be relevant as it explains where the standards of successful media use come from, that being, one’s network or peers. Katherine has set her standards of receiving “over 100 likes” as successful due to the fact her and her peers have conversed and agreed that this number makes them relevant in their social circle. Using the idea of social presencing can also support this theory. Kathrine didn’t stop playing outside or riding her scooter because she no longer liked those activities, she stopped because that was no longer socially ‘cool’ in her friend group. Now, in order to stay socially present she needed to have her phone, because as written in the article, “her IPhone is where all of her friends are always hanging out.” For these reasons I believe that the anxiety regarding new tech is more based on the social emphasis we give it. The more power we give a platform the more it will be adapted, the more we converse about the implication of likes or follows, the more meaning they acquire.
I choose to focus on the perspective of the social construction of technology because in my opinion there is nothing more powerful than the people. Producers of technology rely on the people to purchase their products, without that exchange they will not be successful. Especially in the field of technology, people want products that fit into to their social lives and products that bring ease rather than require adjustment.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 7, 2018 at 2:59 PM

    The question you pose in the first paragraph is intriguing and one I spent some time carefully deliberating. While you're correct in saying that phones don't come with handy "how-to" guides in reference to how to be a successful social media platform user. It is we the users who have determined over time what it means to be successful on these platforms, whether it be the number of likes we receive on an Instagram post, or the amount of retweets we get on a tweet. Nobody/nothing told us that these needed to be the standards, yet these standards are arguably ubiquitous.

    Great post!

    ReplyDelete

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