Separation exists only in human mind. - Rinon Hoxha

 I believe that relationship development takes on a different form online than offline. Whilst offline relationships are largely based on body language and vocal tones I believe that online relationships are largely based on wording and timely responses. The faster someone responds the more inclined we are to believe that they are interested in us. Because tone cannot be assessed a lot of weight is put on the wording or phrasings of sentences. For this reason, I also believe that this why more misunderstandings happen online than offline.

What stood out for me about the Walther reading is the relation of affection in a relationship to how asynchronous the communication is. I immediately thought of my own online relationships. I have two good friends across the map. One is in Australia and we talk everyday via bbm, and instant communication application on my black berry. The other is in New York and I speak to her once a week. We communicate via email. In trying to analyze which relationship had the most affection and deeper level of communication, I realized it was my friend in New York. Whilst our conversations were not everyday they were also not limited to short quick conversation. Relating closely to Harasims point on the advantage of delayed responses being that one can formulate their responses more effectively, my conversation with my friend in New York had more substance.

What was slightly worrying was the effects internet is having on offline relationships. The studies relating to the amount of time taken away from family in lieu of the Internet was a worry I brought up in my previous blogs. This weekend I was traveling. On the plane for those two hours I sat next to a very chat lady. She and I spoke for the whole two hours and had a great conversation. However, as soon as we landed and cell phones were permitted I was as good as a stranger again. Her offline relationship had become a substitute for her online relationship. I couldn’t help but remember the good old days we would text someone only because we were lonely in a room… 

Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day. Jaron Lanier

My facebook profile gets more private by the day. I once had a completely public profile yet now hardly anyone can acess much of my information. Kirkpatrick would possibly justify this by saying “The older you are, the more likely you are to find Facebook’s exposure of personal information intrusive and excessive.” Whilst I agree for the most part, I would like to further this premise and say the more multilayered our relationships, and opinions of self are the more privacy setting are employed. Whilst facebook used to a social gathering for our age-mates it has rapidly grown to having everyone from our professors, family, one-time acquaintances, colleagues etc Whilst before I could upload a photo of a night out and not worry about who would see what, now I cannot given that my conservative aunties or uncles may land on it. I have to think in a multifaceted manner when I update a status because the information goes out to all of my “circles.” I would argue that the emergence of multiple identities has also increased in heightened privacy settings, allowing a select few access to your personal information. This would fall into the Contextual criteria;

boyd and Harggitai suggest that in contrast to Kirkpatricks assumption “younger users are conscious enough of privacy issues to take measures to manage which parts of their profiles are accessible.” I would urge that we think of a missing layer. I believe younger users are more conscious because they have more at stake. This would fall into the Risk-benefit criteria. Because younger users share SO much on their profiles they have more to risk if it is in the wrong hands. Whereas the older users of facebook have basic information that does not really require privacy settings. My argument thus being that it is BECAUSE the older users are more aware of privacy that they undergo self privatizing even without the help of Facebook privacy settings.

In thinking of my own profile which is an excessively private profile it was interesting to see that I fulfill the four findings.

“A student is significantly more likely to have a private profile if (1) the student’s friends, and especially roommates, have private profiles; (2) the student is more active on Facebook; (3) the student is female; and (4) the student generally prefers music that is relatively popular (high mean) and only music that is relatively popular (low SD).” [4]

Like I mentioned before, my boundaries used to be thin and many of the reasons for sharing were in line to Petronio’s findings. I find myself as time goes by limiting my profile more and more each day. I will admit that I am doing this to transition into deactivating my account but I would not be nearly as comfortable with an open profile as I was 5 years ago. 

Gender Studies Symposium. Kawuna...youre it!

I performed my sophomore one-woman show at the Gender Symposium. I would like to blog about the audiences reaction to the show and particularly the ending where I used recorded interviews and projected it for the audience to see. It was the first time I used technology of that sort in my plays and it was certainly what I got the most feedback on.
The play tells the story of three Ugandan women who differ in age and class but share two important things. They are all Ugandan. HIV /AIDS affects them all in one-way or another. The play follows EDITH, KYAKYO and NAKISISA through their interaction with the disease. The play ends with Edith leaving the counseling center and being told to jot down her memories and words of advice for her child to have when she passes away. Although she initially struggles with the concept of accepting that she will die, she realizes the importance of it. She calls her domestic help who we find out is NAKISISA to help her record a video recording for her unborn daughter who we find out is KYAKYO. A recorded message from EDITH is projected and played for the audience and then cuts to a series of messages from women in Uganda from IDI (infectious Disease Institute) to their children. The recording cuts back to EDITH’s final message to KYAKYO “mummy loves you”.

There was a shift in the audience once the recorded message started to play. Whilst I could contribute it to the emotional factor of real women sharing their messages, the first section is still me as an actress delivering the message. The recording was done in the same room. Essentially it was exactly the same except I was on a screen and not in front of them. It was a rewarding a choice, but somewhat alarming and worrying that people identified to me on a screen on a deeper level than in person. That is not to say that the rest of the play was successful, but as soon as the recorded section played there was a deeper and richer level of identification. This bluntly highlighted the change in our emotional strings.  That we have started relating more to a TV screen than the people in front of us is an alarming thought.

However like I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, to ignore what is going on in society is to hinder growth. I intend to continue try as much technology into my future performances. 

Virtual Schizophrenia

Facebook has become the site where we play to the gallery. When I think of Facebook I closely align it to Turkes suggestion that through virtual worlds we "project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star.... Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual.” Facebook allows us to produce, direct and star in our own dramas called “my profile.” From choosing a profile picture, to status updates our pages allow us to project ourselves into our own dramas. I would go further to say that not only are we projecting ourselves into our own dramas, rather we are projecting our dramas onto others. Many a times I have seen people taking photos yellow “facebook profile picture” in which they will pick up a bottle they were not drinking, take the photo, then put the bottle down. This allows the person to paint a picture of their life or fantasy life. Like Turke mentions, this does not stop at erotic fantasies but intellectual as well. The person’s profile I chose to look at, solely has quotes by famous authors. From his profile one would gather that he is wise, a bookworm and full of insight. However, because this person is my brother, I know that he has hardly read any of those books and probably googles famous quotes every morning to find a facebook status. The same applies to jokes. I started following someone on twitter who I share many mutual friends with. I was always in stitches after his tweets, and told my friends what a funny person their friend was. They disagreed and it was only after meeting him this December that I understood why. He was so reserved and socially awkward. Twitter, behind his computer screen allowed him to create a virtual character.  Like the 21 year old senior who was defending her violent characters, “ creating screen personae is thus an opportunity for self-expression, leading to her feeling more like her true self when decked out in an array of virtual masks” people feel they can be themselves behind a computer screen with no social risks.

In answering your question about which personae seems more real to me. I am left rather undecided. Does the computer screen shed all our inhibitions and allow us to truly be ourselves or does it facilitate us adding layers to our personality to fit in.

Turke ends with an interesting point, stating that “Our need for a practical philosophy of self knowledge has never been greater as we struggle to make meaning from our lives on the screen.” I am left wondering whether the struggle is about us making meaning from our lives on the screen or rather us struggling to present the self we believe will be accepted. The way people are presenting themselves on their computer screens, facebook being my favourite example can lead us to further understand what people find important, and the trends in society. The facebook profile picture is my favorite example. I know people who will spend hours choosing the right picture. Editing it, sometimes so much so that they are unrecognizable.  It is clear that even at face value, they are presenting a false image of themselves and even though people know they do not look like that in real life it is of importance that their Facebook identity projects their fantasies.  A phenomenon like this, particular with teenage women points out the superficiality and pressure on women to be “beautiful.”

My major concern with virtual identities is that it seems people are spending more time editing their profiles than on self reflection. More time editing their pictures than going to the gym. More time finding quotes rather than reading a book.

Essentially forgetting about the real self in preference of the virtual self.  

"Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?"

  In this blog post I will try and wrap my head around a question posed by Steinkuehler and Williams. Whether virtual communities are real. I read this article before I read the small town gossip and all I kept thinking of was a debate I had just yesterday over free speech and the “market of ideas.” The idea that people can say what they want and hide behind anonymity. As I read the argument about “the Internet's capacity for connecting people across time and space fosters the formation of social networks and personal communities (Wellman & Gullia, 1999) and bridges class and racial gaps (Mehra, Merkel, & Bishop, 2004)” I couldn’t help but remember my first racist encounter was on an MMO. My brother who is much a part of the popular MMO “world of warcraft” constantly mentions the racial and sexist slurs that are so frequently changed on the community. Much like the small town gossip article where this “flaming”, as Baym identifies it, occurs from anonymity, the idea that people can speak freely and not have any consequences clashes with my idea of a “real community.”  In my opinion, if we do not have to factor other people’s emotional or moral standings in a space then we are not in a community.

The article argues that “the habitat of the typical third place thus enjoys a richness of human contact that is denied the timid, the bigoted, the pretentious, and others who choose to insulate themselves from human variety” but I would argue that this third place is full of the timid, pretentious and those who insulate themselves from the human variety. Much of the exchanges on these MMO’s or sites like topix would never be uttered in a real community. Not to mention that many of these MMO’s form guilds whereby you can be kicked out so the sub communities in these so-called communities are consisted only of like-minded people that lack human variety.

In my high school we had a guestbook page on our website whereby people could post anonymous comments. Much of the comments came from the students and was similar to what was being discussed about Jennifer Jam. I remember I was once victim to rumors and online bashing and my sixteen-year self was distraught that everyone in the school had the wrong impression of me. In remembering this traumatic teen story I remembered how another high school also had a guestbook with similar comments however we were never interested in reading them because we did not know the subjects of the matter. In thinking of the idea that “online negativity seems to dissipate naturally in a large city”, I would argue is dissipates because not enough people know the subjects of the matter. Gossip is only interesting if you know who is being gossiped about.

In case you couldn’t tell I am not a fan of MMO’s or sites like Topix because I think they have real consequences in life. Even with Facebook, whilst you have to have a name, people constantly create alter egos and participate in online bullying. If you have time read this article about a mother creating a fake myspace account to bully a 13 year old girl (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315684,00.html) Stories like this make me really worry about this third place that is being created through MMO’s and online forums. I think there are real advantages to them, however I am very skeptical about readily calling them real communities. 

SNS

I will start this blog with a personal anecdote of when I realized the power of online communities and networks. My father is a doctor and one night whilst on call in Swaziland, he was taking blood from a drunken man who flung his hand to try and avoid the injection and it pierced my father. My father later found out from his file this man was HIV positive. In those days, it took 6 months before you could test and find out your result. So for 6 months my father was living in uncertainty. He of course only shared this with me and my brother when we were older but he told me what got him through those 6 months was a relationship he formed with a 16 year old boy, also called Alex who was HIV positive and they formed a friendship and support group. Much like broken hearted girl and frosting 112 the relationship and community that was built between the two was genuine and my father found a support system that no matter how willing, my mother or his family could not give. When my father found out he was HIV negative the relationship did not stop, and they continued to be friends till his passing day. That friendship is what lead my father to become so involved in HIV/AIDS and now is considered a world specialist in that field. I say this not to brag about my dad (even though I think he is one of the most amazing individuals) I say this to show that online communities can have authentic relationships. Like with PEW’s finding with facebook user getting more support, online communities can provide social, emotional and political support.

That said, whilst I agreed with most of what this chapter had to say I would like to contest the notion that we can see mediated communication as interwoven and not detracting from real engagement. I will use Facebook as an example, given that it dominates 92% of the SNS space. I have always seen Facebook as a playing to the gallery site. Rather than living life, we report about how we are living it. People at parties no longer just go to dance; rather they spend their time posing for photos (for their face book albums) over and over again to get the right picture, trying to make it look like they were in the middle of a dance, conversation or really interesting pose. Sticking to the party example, people will update their status to say “how much fun they are having wooohooo” rather than simply having fun with the people in front of them. Which leads to my major point, if we are so concerned with our SNS community what happens to our community before our eyes. SNS no longer becomes interwoven into real engagement it detracts from it. I mentioned I deleted whatsapp(a messaging application) in a previous post because when I was in Uganda I would spend my time on my phone messaging American friends telling them how much I miss them and when I was in American I would spend my time on my phone messaging Ugandan friends telling them how much I miss them. I was ALWAYS on my phone messaging people, missing people, instead of enjoying the people I was surrounded by. Whilst Facebook and other SNS allows us to hold onto friendships longer (because of easy access and sustainability to the friendship) I have found it makes me less outgoing or enthusiastic about making new friends. Rather than go out in a new place and make friends, I stay home and skype my best friend. To simply denote that these forms of interactions are simply interwoven is problematic and not seeing the larger picture. It is important that we fully analyze the full impact that SNS is having on our real life engagement.

A little link that reminded me of this chapter. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gGXylVz6KI

LOL <= the most common lie told in today’s society.

It was very interesting reading about communication in digital spaces and specifically the insertion of social cues into this medium. Just this weekend I was skyping with my best friend and I had received a phone call so I answered my phone but she was still on my skype line. She typed a joke to me and without thinking I typed back LOL. When I got off the phone she immediately laughs and says “So now I know you lie every time you say LOL” and it struck me. LOL no longer means laughing out loud rather it has become a social cue to affirm that we have received and acknowledged a joke.  If the joke is very funny then we will even say LMAO (laughing my ass off) yet I cannot count how many times, rather than actually laugh, I type these letters. It is clear that there is a desire for the best of both worlds. The intimacy of face-to-face communication with the fast-paced and easily available access to online communication. The meetings of these worlds have given birth to emoticons. Relating to the first argument for SIPT, “the alteration of impression-bearing, emotional, and relation-managing information much of which is typically expressed nonverbally offline (e.g smiling); and how it is translated into verbal and textual symbols online (e.g :) ).” Emoticons have evolved so much so there is an app on the iphone to give a wider range of emoticons, ranging from party hats, puking faces, three versions of laughter, six different smiles (side, teeth, smirk etc.) People are no longer satisfied with a semicolon on bracket. They are looking for the social cues to emulate the social cues one would get through face-to-face communication. The ability to manipulate these social cues is what I feel to be a danger of online communication. Though I give a trivial example of my LOL with my friend this weekend, because as Baxter and Braithwaite mention, online information is not contested by pitch, body language, facial expressions etc. We take what we are given. Manipulating social interactions can be a dangerous result of this mediated interaction.

I was surprised however that whilst Baym mentioned gender as a contextual influence on communication she did not relate it to the use of symbols. I have found that within my online and cell phone interactions females use emoticons way more than males. This is not to say that I feel women enjoy them more, but I think this can inform on how society see’s face-to-face communication. Assuming we are trying to emulate face-to-face communication, does this mean that men feel they need to be less emotional than women? Do women feel the need to constantly share their emotional state? Or is it just more accepted? I say this because just the other day I read on twitter a male tweet “Men who use smiley faces #fail.” I think this could open an interesting perspective or take on this communication. Rather than looking at how face-to-face informs online communication, maybe we can start to ask how online communication informs face-to-face communication.

I would also like to play devils advocate and say that I see a growing trend whereby online communication is becoming more intimate than face-to-face communication. This sounds absurd to say, but I have noticed people to be funnier, interesting and even more intelligent than when I meet them in real life. There are people I have great debates with on twitter or facebook yet I can barely exchange two words to them in person. Possibly a similar cause to “flaming” the ability to hide behind a screen allows us to not only be meaner, but also funnier (without the risk of no one laughing), intelligent and interesting (without having to come up with an idea on the spot, SIPT speaks to the slower rate of communication.) With the new evolving generation that meets online then meets in person and not vice versa like before, I would argue that online communication has become more intimate than face-to-face. Do I believe this argument? Not completely but its worth thinking about.