Blog Post #2- life's contradictions


Katherine Pommerening, like most teenage girls today, is constantly glued to her phone. This is not something that should be considered a shock to anyone anymore considering most people around you are constantly on their phones. However, what this should be is a concern, a concern that we have forgotten how to socialize in person rather than only online; a perfect example which was shown in the movie watched in class. Not only is that the only concerning factor; there are several, but one major one which is mentioned in the article is the lack of interest for real news. Real news today is considered to be the latest Kardashian baby born instead of police brutality (just to name an extreme example). Of course, while the first story may seem more interesting, it’s important to note that actual real news stories are being forgotten about. As Baym discusses in the second chapter of Personal Connections in the Digital Age, I believe that technological determinism best explains how the anxiety about the interactivity of new digital media is evidenced in the article about Katherine.
Technological determinism is a theory that assumes that a society’s technology determines a society’s cultural value. While this may or may not be true, it can also be assumed that a culture determines how technology is used rather than technology dictating what a culture values. However, as mobile phones are the main topic of discussion in the article, it is clear how these devices transformed the way people interact with each other today and people’s ability to communicate and socialize in time and space. Essentially, mobile phones (including social media), have determined the way one shapes their identity. The way people use them (especially teenagers like Katherine), gives them meaning in the context of their lives- today it is considered ‘appropriate’ to walk around with headphones in- tuning out the rest of society while also scrolling through Instagram being social. The reason I chose technological determinism to help explain these anxieties formed by social media and such, is being the theory itself is contradictory as much as the concept of social media.
Being social online is not the same thing as being social in person, just as technology does not determine how a society functions; the society itself determines how it lets such technology ‘control’ its values, ethics, and so on.

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