Blog Post #2: The Allure of the Little Notification Box

The anxiety surrounding how we must carefully construct ourselves and interact online is evidenced in the article about Katherine, and I wish to explore this through the lens of technological determinism. The young protagonist experiences stress with social interactivity as her self-confidence is heavily reliant on the amount of likes or comments she receives from others. She also experiences stress with textual interactivity as she sees her friends’ posts about her birthday as symbolizing their fondness towards her. However, we often assume blame on the teen for their addictive nature, as Dave does in this article, but we rarely explore how the technology could be at fault. The need for recognition and confirmation from our peers online is a pressing concern for Katherine, seen when she mentions her constant watch on the “little notification box”. These tactics of constantly notifying and alerting the user of more information and interactions is just one of the ways our mobile phones have been programmed to keep us hooked. Along with it’s manipulation of the basic need to feel a sense of belonging and connection with others, technology has this way of pulling us in and I believe it holds responsibility in creating these anxieties for young teens in this digital era. 

Comments

  1. Cedaleia GrahamOctober 7, 2018 at 1:51 PM

    Hey Talia,

    I really enjoyed reading your post because I had also used technological determinism as a reasoning behind our social life and social media influence. Upon writing my own blog post for this week, I had not even thought about the validation that stems from our social media use. It is not the users who are at fault for this need to be validated, instead, these platforms that highlight our number of followers, comments, and likes is the epitome of our own self-confidence - online and in-person. I would be lying if I said that I did not constantly refresh my notifications page after posting content on social media, and I'm sure that we can all agree that we have done it once or twice. These platforms have created us to believe that we have to gain affirmation from these social media sites. However, the way that we dictate these 'likes' is based solely on how we feel about ourselves and whether or not we use these 'likes' to depict how validated we are.

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