Constructing Self Realities
Looking at people's profiles on Facebook, it is like looking at these self constructed personas we all have created for ourselves to put on display.
This is who I am defined through the realms of photo albums, education, number of friends, groups and interests. I was deciding whether or not to put a link to my blog here and chose not to. Though this is a public space and if you knew what to look for could find my site, but I think for now I prefer to keep it 'private'. Personally I find Facebook more as mere entertainment and a social tool and this space as a place for self reflection two things I'd like to keep seperate from one another.
At times I wonder why I am the way I am whether be it an aspiration of who I wish to become or a reaction to the people around me. Have we all constructed our on realities?
Facebook makes me feel very small in the large expanse of networks. In some ways I dislike it- I dislike getting to know people in this very impersonal, disconnected way. Yet it has the power to find distant friends and reconnect the past to present. When I examine what the internet has become, the more I see Foucault's Panopticon looming overhead. We have sitemeters to track down the number of visitors, where they are currently living, how long they spent on your site. If you go on Amazon, it remembers what you were browsing and suggests a slew of recommendations. Youtube has changed the scope of media- anyone can be famous as long as a person plugs in their own video onto the net. Is it possible to even have a life of privacy anymore? Or are we all in such desperation to be seen, heard and known that we've sacrificed exclusivity for mass produced thoughts and answers? I don't even have to talk to a person to know what they like, what they're doing, what they are thinking anymore. Yet the next time I see them, I feel like I've cheated them of saying anything because I got to know them personally on some very impersonal level via the Internet. It blurs the boundaries between the public and private self. What sacred is there left?
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I signed a contract yesterday giving Women for Women the rights to my project 'design' so that they can sell it for Mother's Day in return for credit however they've changed some parts of the design. -_- Anyway, that was a great class. It actually went from concept to creation. I hope it makes a difference in some of the lives of the women.
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My greatest fear: unrequited love.
This is who I am defined through the realms of photo albums, education, number of friends, groups and interests. I was deciding whether or not to put a link to my blog here and chose not to. Though this is a public space and if you knew what to look for could find my site, but I think for now I prefer to keep it 'private'. Personally I find Facebook more as mere entertainment and a social tool and this space as a place for self reflection two things I'd like to keep seperate from one another.
At times I wonder why I am the way I am whether be it an aspiration of who I wish to become or a reaction to the people around me. Have we all constructed our on realities?
Facebook makes me feel very small in the large expanse of networks. In some ways I dislike it- I dislike getting to know people in this very impersonal, disconnected way. Yet it has the power to find distant friends and reconnect the past to present. When I examine what the internet has become, the more I see Foucault's Panopticon looming overhead. We have sitemeters to track down the number of visitors, where they are currently living, how long they spent on your site. If you go on Amazon, it remembers what you were browsing and suggests a slew of recommendations. Youtube has changed the scope of media- anyone can be famous as long as a person plugs in their own video onto the net. Is it possible to even have a life of privacy anymore? Or are we all in such desperation to be seen, heard and known that we've sacrificed exclusivity for mass produced thoughts and answers? I don't even have to talk to a person to know what they like, what they're doing, what they are thinking anymore. Yet the next time I see them, I feel like I've cheated them of saying anything because I got to know them personally on some very impersonal level via the Internet. It blurs the boundaries between the public and private self. What sacred is there left?
---------------------------------------------------------
I signed a contract yesterday giving Women for Women the rights to my project 'design' so that they can sell it for Mother's Day in return for credit however they've changed some parts of the design. -_- Anyway, that was a great class. It actually went from concept to creation. I hope it makes a difference in some of the lives of the women.
---------------------------------------------------------
My greatest fear: unrequited love.
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