What Comes After Facebook? (10/27)

While reading the Salon article about Facebook's faults, I found myself wondering what the next best thing might be. The fact that Facebook sees itself as more of a news aggregate than a social network is somewhat shocking and something I hadn't heard about until now. In an age of overwhelming advertising, this makes sense. Its obviously easier to make money off of clickbait-y ads than your friend's birthday party pictures. But still, if Facebook is not willing to uphold the standard of being the almighty social network we thought it would be all these years, what is? Twitter is too fragmented and overrun with ads (to the point where its mobile app is almost unusable), Snapchat and Instagram are too single service, and everything else hasn't yet been widely adopted by such a large swath of the world's population. While the transition from MySpace to Facebook felt seamless, MySpace was nowhere near as embedded in everything we see and do on the internet. So many other sites and apps rely on Facebook integration. Facebook is built into the infrastructure of our daily lives as our modern day town square. It's no longer a craze – it's an institution, which means maybe there is no "next Facebook." While Zuckerberg himself says Facebook will never become a "media outlet" in the traditional sense because they will never produce content, maybe the definition of media outlet needs updating. Maybe Facebook isn't strictly a media outlet or a social network, but something new entirely. Imaging a post-Facebook world now seems impossible, but as the author of the Salon article notes, so did imagining a post-Microsoft world in the '90s. Only time will tell.

Whoops There Goes My Data (10/25)

This set of articles reminded me of a recent episode of Note To Self, one of my favorite podcasts, where they discussed the possibility that our phones might quite literally be listening in on us. Most of us are contently floating along in cyberspace, unknowingly hemorrhaging data with every button press and mouse click. It takes something out of the ordinary to make us pause and step back to look at the bigger picture. I experienced one of these moments recently.

At work, I was ordering stickers in bulk. I perused several sites to price compare, decided on the company with the best deal, sent off my order, and life went on. The next day, as I was checking my personal Instagram account, I noticed something strange: an embedded ad for the site I just ordered the stickers from. I had never been to this site before yesterday, and I only looked at it while I was on work at a work computer. I understand this happened because I was logged into several personal accounts on my work computer including Facebook (who owns Instagram), but the experience made me pause. If it's that easy to connect my personal and work lives online, how should/will I handle this when I'm employed in a more serious job?      

So I'm faced with a problem but no solution. How can we better protect ourselves online without being Mr. Robot levels of computer genius? As the Medium article states, younger generations clearly care about this issue. Far more so than the older generations, we're the ones that are going to have to live with the ramifications of our previous actions. Most of us have posting online since we were children with our first social media accounts. While my parents younger selves remain private and inaccessible other than what they choose to share, my old MySpace bulletins from 7th grade are probably still somewhere out there waiting to cause me embarrassment. I suppose the first step to remedying this is to, as addicting as they are, stop taking those Buzzfeed quizzes.

Jealous? Sad? Angry? Smash That Unfollow

I used to hate Facebook. Don't get me wrong, I loved social media, but I found the daily bombardment of my Facebook feed to be more than I could handle. Like several of the articles describe, I got caught up in a swirl of jealousy and annoyance over everything everyone else was posting about. Around a year ago when I started working for student media, I found myself needing to use Facebook on an everyday basis to keep in contact with the other student members and various management teams. As a consequence, I spent a little bit of time each day going through my feed, and yep, feeling overwhelmed. So I decided to spend the time to clean up my feed. I unfollowed or unfriended people that I didn't want to see. People who were blatantly racist or sexist, people who I shamefully "hate followed" out of nosiness, people who I just simply didn't feel the need to keep up with anymore – all gone. I now do this on a regular basis on every social media account and while sometimes I feel guilty about it, I know it's so worth it for my long term wellbeing.

The idea that social media is a place devoid of healthy connection is ridiculous. I get to see what's going on with my friends that live across the US and in other countries and keep up with family members that I otherwise only see once or twice a year. The fact that I get to easily send pieces of my life to them and share in their triumphs and accomplishments is wonderful and definitely helps my mental health more than it burdens it. Every time I see someone claiming that social media makes us jealous and depressed I want to grab them and yell, "It doesn't have to be this way!" If you're getting jealous or seriously upset over what other people post on Facebook – and I mean this is the most sincere way possible – seek out counseling. Go talk these feelings through with someone and learn how to handle them going forward.

Jealously wasn't born from social media. Seeing your neighbor's brand new convertible in their driveway could just as easily put you on a spiral of jealousy and self-doubt as seeing the same car posted on Facebook. Also, if people only posting the "good" in their lives on social media bothers you, do your part to flip the switch. We spent last class discussing vulnerability, so use social media to show your vulnerable side or ask for support. As the Atlantic article explains, having reciprocal relationships with people makes you happier. Just like in digital marketing, it's all about setting up the right interaction to create a connection. If you ask an open ended question or give people the opportunity to respond to something you post, people will interact with you. If you're having an off day, don't necessarily rant about it via text wall, but maybe throw up a post asking for funny movie recommendations. You'll get some nice suggestions and open yourself up to new connections with your friends.

Slowing Down, Speeding Up (10/18)

If anyone needs to take a break from technology, it's me. No matter what I'm doing, I'm usually listening to a podcast, checking tweets, or keeping up with work while doing it. Even my friends have caught me asleep with my laptop on my chest and a YouTube video softly playing. It's embarrassing. Taking a "break" from work includes consuming more – a simple check on social media can turn my brain onto a checklist of other, non-work related things that I need to get done. It can start to feel like life is a never-ending checklist waiting to be attended to. But I still manage to make it through with (mostly) successful results.            

I appreciate how the Spectator article notes the benefits as well as the drawbacks of our instant lives. All technology users (not just the young ones) are routinely punished for their impatience, but is it so wrong to want the technology you use to work to the best of its ability? It's just human nature to prioritize efficiency. The faster we get things done, the sooner we can "hit the reset button" and take some well earned time off. Work hard, play hard.         

We have longer attention spans than we give ourselves credit for. Even with technology, most people I know enjoy long conversations over dinner, binge watching hour-long TV shows, and somehow manage to lead productive work and school lives. Yes, sometimes technology can be a crutch (shoutout to all the awkward situations I've avoided by staring at my phone), but more often than not, people are self-aware enough to determine when it's appropriate to slow down a bit. After all, as the Fortune article explains, Millennials are more willing than other generations to delay monetary gratification to help their careers in the long run. Technology can sometimes blur the line between work and play, but we're starting to get the hang of balancing all the various aspects of our lives.  

"Spiral of Silence" or Just Fear of Not Getting Hired?

It's interesting to watch the way peoples' political lives play out on their social media platforms. Among my friends, I've noticed three general approaches. Some friends will put all of their political and social justice beliefs out there to the point where it becomes their online identity. Others (like myself) have chosen to hang back and post very selectively about the political discussions they feel are of the utmost importance. A select few have chosen to go even further and make absolutely no mention of politics on their accounts whatsoever. While the Motherboard article cites that mass surveillance is to blame for peoples' unwillingness to express dissenting opinions online, I think it's also for a simple reason that's more immediate than the threat of mass surveillance: finding a job. 

For years, everyone of a certain generation has heard the same adage about how what you post online could come back to haunt you, particularly when you begin a job search. I know for myself and many others, this alters what gets posted on our public social media accounts drastically. For example, parties, nights out, and any general foolishness is carefully edited out of my feed. Additionally, I hesitate to get overly political for fear of my opinions being seen as too contradictory. I've seen my peers handle this in different ways. Some start "alt accounts" on Twitter and Instagram that are private and for content that would make a human resources representative raise an eyebrow. Some are careful to make sure their real name doesn't appear anywhere on their account. For me, keeping it all in one place is necessary, so I simply watch what I post. 

What I found particularly interesting was how in the Independent article, the author cites a study that found that Facebook and Twitter users were more likely to suppress talking about their beliefs in person as well as online when they felt their viewpoint didn't align with popular opinion. I feel that this goes back to the "content bubbles" we discussed earlier in the semester. We're so used to being validated by what appears in our feeds that we find any type of debate, whether in person or online, to be threatening or not worth our time and we shut down.  

However, not expressing support for an issue can be just as incriminating as expressing a dissenting opinion in the eyes of some. Celebrities routinely come under fire for what they have posted as well as what they haven't. Somewhat recently, Selena Gomez was called out for not tweeting in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and failing to use her platform to spread awareness.                   

It's interesting to see what crosses the line for different people, and what is considered personally acceptable for each platform. With social media, it's crucial that we act as our own editors.