Blog Post #2

Hello!

         The emergence of social media platforms has influenced many changes to occur within society as individuals create new norms and expectations based off of their personal values, morals, beliefs, etc.  When exposed to these new forms of communication and interactivity, individuals are often anxious at first as when these technologies are first introduced to society, they are basically a blank canvas waiting for individuals to fill out and create meaning for.  This specific perspective is referred to as the “Social Constructivism of Technology” coined by Nancy K. Baym. Overtime these individuals will establish ‘rules’ or ‘norms’ for these new forms of technology. In the article “13, Right Now: This is what it’s like to grow up in the age of likes, lols and longing” a young girl goes through everyday life being a teenager in the era of technology. Katherine Pommerening is a 14-year-old girl who is obsessed with her phone, just as anyone else her age is. There are many anxieties that are linked to these new forms of social media and they are presented on many occasions within the article. Katherine discusses wanting to ‘get better at her phone’ so that she can be one of those girls who knows what to post and when to post it. Katherine currently deletes most of her posts as they do not meet the standards of what others have deemed acceptable to post online. This shows how anxiety drives Katherine (and others like her) to delete posts that do not get enough likes, and to post things which do not necessarily present who they really are but rather what the societal/cultural norms are. Nearing the end of the article Katherine expresses her excitement for her birthday due to ‘birthday posts’ which her friends will make online. It was made clear that those who receive many birthday posts are deemed popular, whereas those who do not are viewed as losers. This can cause an individual a great deal of stress as the anticipation of receiving (or not receiving) these birthday messages can be overwhelming. I chose to discuss the ‘Social Construction of Technology’ perspective by Baym, as I felt that it effectively helped to describe the severity of anxieties linked to online interactivity as well as how they are created, as presented through the article.

 Thanks for reading!
Nicole Toushan

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