Blog Post #2

The anxiety surrounding the interactivity of new digital media is highlighted in Katherine’s story in multiple ways. Katherine dismisses all forms of interaction with those around her as she ignores questions asked by her father as she stares mindlessly at the apps on her phone scrolling and flipping through them endlessly. This story can be directly related to technological determinism in multiple ways. Baym states that “direct effects of technology may be strongest when a technology is new because people do not yet understand it. Rather than ‘using’ it, people are being ‘used by it’,” (29). This directly relates to Katherine as she struggles to deal with real life challenges and instead tries to focus on her social life/online identity. She is so concentrated on being “liked” on social media and about how many different platforms of social media she can be on she forgets about real life situations going on around. This is definitely a coping mechanism that is very common in teenagers. For young women specifically, the need to be accepted by society is a very common aspiration at this age. Anxiety through social media plays a massive role in this; this can be seen through Katherine’s stress to make sure that each Instagram post has a suitable amount of likes on it. If she doesn’t get more than 100 likes, then it’s “embarrassing”. This is not only an issue that Katherine faces this is an obsession that almost everyone in our younger generations have. I am a waitress and I always find it sad when I look over at my tables and see everyone on their phones at the table not interacting with one another; it’s unfortunate that our lives have been taken over by social media and the self that we portray on these media platforms. The reading also states that there was a study conducted discussing how “users” vs “non-users” spend on the internet/on their phones and how this directly relates to feeling lonely and affects the amount of time spent with your family. This is clearly evident in Katherine’s life as she neglects her dad’s questions and essentially his existence as she distances herself from reality and her family. I decided to relate Katherine’s obsession with her phone and social media to technological determinism because technological determinism surrounds the ideas that technology has the ability to control and influence us which can clearly be seen through Katherine’s obsession with wanting to be one of the “cool” girls and be accepted by society. 

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 2, 2018 at 2:21 PM

    Today, technology and their devices such as laptops and smartphones have become dominating tools in our everyday lives. They have developed the capacity to allow users to control their functions, learn/share knowledge, and connect with others on a global scale through time and space. These functions and abilities draw users in and can make them escape reality. This is essentially what Katherine Pommerening is doing every time she uses her phone instead of interacting with her father. Her obsession with her online presence has requires her to constantly be checking her phone and social media applications. I like the connection you made to technological determinism, which is affecting Katherine's social life outside of social media and the online world. Us as a society and as the younger generations have given into this technological determinism and allowing our daily social lives to be dominated and ultimately controlled by these devices and social media platforms. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on this week's discussion and the valid and relevant connections to Baym's technological determinism framework. Great Work!

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  2. UnknownOctober 4, 2018 at 2:37 PM

    I totally agree that many people push away their real life problems and focus on their online presence instead. People enjoy escaping the real world. I can also see how anxiety can be created through the use of social media. In today's society everyone is so concerned about being liked. People tend to want a certain number of likes or comments on their pictures. People may even delete their photo's if it does not get as many likes as they would have wanted. Many people think that if they have a good online presence then they will be liked more. Technology as you said, definitely has the power to control us and make us act a certain way. I really enjoyed your post as it was interesting to look into the technological determinism aspect of Katherine's story.

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  3. Liv KellyOctober 6, 2018 at 7:29 PM

    I really enjoyed reading your post! I just wanted to start off by saying that the point you made on how so many people are focussed on how one is dealing with their social media, they essentially forget what is going on in their actual life. I as well agree with the point you made on how especially young ladies feel such the need to be accepted by society through their social media and due to this, social media causes so much stress and anxiety due to the constant fear of not getting enough likes on a photo or status update. This defiantly leaves technology to determine our next move in real life as well.

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  4. Cedaleia GrahamOctober 7, 2018 at 1:41 PM

    Hey Lizzy,

    I really enjoyed reading your post because I had chosen technological determinism as an influence towards our social media use as well. Although we would like to believe that we are superior to our technology, a lot of users are being subconsciously taken advantage of by their technology. Obviously our technology is not forcing us to do or not to do something. Instead, our technology represents such a significant role in the way that we communicate; but most importantly, within this depiction reinforced through Katherine's life, the way that we appear online and on social media. The posts that we like, the people that we follow, and the posts that we share ourselves are all aspects of the way that technological determinism plays within our interactive social culture. Although technology is not imposing any form of control upon its users, its the way that we interact with these platforms that creates this technological deterministic view upon us.

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