Roth Internet 1

Daniel Miller’s work provided an interesting lens through which we may begin to understand Facebook as a media artifact.  As I was reading through the book, there were a few overarching questions that surfaced.

            The first question that I think needs to be addressed when combing through this material is—what does it mean for Facebook to be a “social network?”  There are certainly obvious answers, like “Facebook takes our social groups and interactions and places them in an online forum.”  That explanation seems holistic enough, but there are some things that it certainly does not capture.  I am drawn for some strange reason to a very particular example of this “network” from Miller’s book which, to me, really grasps the essence of why we call Facebook a social network.  Miller explains that one of Facebook’s effects is “making partners much more aware of other friendships.  Facebook also facilitates the stalking of partner’s friends” (168).  Miller goes on to quote from an interview the way one woman describes constantly checking her significant other’s Facebook page to see if he had any new friends.  Marvin also made reference to this idea of being “stalked” by his wife through Facebook.  The reason I feel this embodies the idea of a social network so well is because it shows the power of what this network is.  It is not merely a group of people who share relationships, but it is a public display of those relationships.  Moreover, these show how your social network can include people more than one degree of separation from you, as the woman Miller interviews reports ‘stalking’ her boyfriend’s friends through Facebook. 

            Another big theme in Miller’s work regards the formation of a relationship with Facebook itself.  I turn again to the case of Marvin who Miller explains blamed Facebook for the destruction of his relationship with his wife.  Miller says “he wishes he could end his relationship.  He doesn’t mean his relationship to his wife but rather his relationship with Facebook itself” (15).  Later Miller jokes that Marvin could have written on his Facebook profile that he was “in a relationship – with Facebook” (15).  This idea comes up again in Miller’s work under the thesis of ‘Facebook as a meta-friend.’  This section struck me on a personal level, because I know a lot of my friends will use Facebook at insane hours of the night as a way of keeping themselves company while no one else is awake and they are up doing work.  Some of them go so far as to write status updates that are pages in length.  They use Facebook as a mechanism of performance art in some ways.  While these statuses certainly contain more substance than those recorded from Aaron’s Facebook profile—who posted things like “Football should not be called soccer” (81)—writing a very long status is in no way less of a time suck.  All of this is to say that there is something interesting about the fact that Facebook is a friend we have when we don’t actually have friends around.  It is a stand-in for these friends, and while we use Facebook to interact with these people, we consider it to be somewhat of a time-suck.  While on the notion of Facebook as a time-suck, a few years ago Google had a Pac-Man style doodle on its homepage.  That reportedly cost the economy $120 million in productivity loss (http://www.newser.com/story/90060/google-pac-man-doodle-cost-120m-in-lost-work.html).  I cannot even imagine what the distraction of Facebook is costing the economy, but it’s probably huge.  The main question I am trying to get at here is how much of this social network is about our relationships with others, and how much of what we call a social network is really accounted for by our relationship with the medium of Facebook itself? 

            The last thing I wanted to touch upon is the idea of representation.  As I said in a forum post last week, one of my friends is writing a novel and has made a Facebook page for the main character.  He uses the Facebook page to explore the world of this character.  The character is very active in posting on people’s walls, RSVPing to events, and updating his status regularly.  According to Facebook, this character is no less a real person than I am.  This is a really weird thing to think about—that we can create a person out of nothing.  In a way, Facebook has changed what it is to exist as a person.  You are no longer yourself as a human being with a body on Facebook, but you are the amalgamation of the photos, statuses, wall posts, etc. that exist on your wall.  Your existence on Facebook is one that is heavily mediated.  The central question here is—how does Facebook change the way in which a person is represented?  What does it mean to exist in the world of a social network?  How is existence and subjectivity mediated via the social network?

            These are the three areas I found to be most intriguing and fundamental to understanding the work done by Miller and during our lecture on Thursday.  There are no doubt other key things to look at in our discussion of the internet, but these provide us with a good starting point.  

Palmer Internet 2

Facebook, a social network created by Harvard genius Mark Zuckerberg quickly expanded to a point where it has over 800 million active users. 4 percent of photos ever taken by the human race now are visible somewhere on facebook. In the book written by Daniel Miller, Tales From Facebook, he studies and examines 12 different people who all use facebook to fulfill a specific need which differ from case to case. Facebook is a free online service which in his studies realizes that it can have a large effect on people’s lives. Daniel interviews each of his test subjects and answers are very different from one person to the next. The test subjects were based out of Trinidad in his book.

It was demonstrated last class that most people have a facebook account, including every person in our class. Therefore most people can relate to the stories and interviews that are being written by Daniel Miller. But before certain cases are looked at, it is interesting to notice that none of the test subject are from the US but instead are all from overseas. Americans who have facebook can seemingly relate to other Americans, but looking at foreigners, it could bring up different things that are not usually seen in the US.

There were two cases in particular that I found interesting in relating their lives to facebook, Vishala and Aaron. They are both young people and reading their interviews and realizing what they think of and use facebook for in relation to myself was interesting to look at.

In the case of Vishala, it made me think of my identity, in other words how facebook allows people to see me on the internet. An example of this would be at a party or a get together with a group of people, someone always has a camera and is taking pictures. Some people just try to get in these pictures because they know they will more than likely make it onto facebook at some point and will be displayed in their profile and pictures. Its also easy enough, with the technology today, to take a picture of yourself and post it on facebook immediately from your phone or device to depict yourself in the way you would like to be seen. At the same time, it is just as easy to get rid of a picture on your facebook profile by simply untagging yourself, and there is even a security setting on facebook that makes sure your confirm that it is you in the tagged picture before it appears on your profile. It is all a comparison between your actually self and facebook self and trying to match the two identities.

In the other interview that I found interesting in looking at Aaron, someone who uses facebook mainly to communicate after school. It is interesting to look at this case because now a days there are so many forms of technology that allow for easy forms of communication. Growing up there was never facebook until my freshmen year in high school. I would use forms of messengers instead to communicate with friends and once and a while might use the phone. There was MSN messenger, yahoo messenger etc. Facebook makes communicating over the internet easier and amusing as well. You can post videos or pictures on another person’s wall and there is also facebooks own type of messenger that is used to talk with fellow friends that may be online at the same time as you are.

Facebook is a different view of oneself and after reading this book, facebook is used for a variety of different reasons which include communication and selling products along with playing games, etc. Not only in the US is this prevalent but as the book suggests, it is becoming a worldwide phenomena. Do you use facebook in any way other than communicating?

Bieg Internet 2

          In his book, Tales from Facebook, Daniel Miller explores the societal impact of Facebook in Trinidad.  As Miller explains in his preface, he believes this displacement from the reader’s usual setting will make the book more “effective at helping them consider the impact also on their own lives”(X). Just as Professor Pandian questions the “space” in cyberspace, Miller further explains that the internet and Facebook in general are defined not by any particular group but by “whatever any particular group of users had made it into.” He also believes Trinidad usage of Facebook is often not just distinctive but also ahead of others in terms of thinking of how Facebook can be used making it an ideal candidate to do anthropological research in.  What do you think of Miller’s interpretation of Facebook and the internet? Is there any way to define what cyberspace really is or is it just a matter of how a group uses it as Miller suggests?

In this first part of the book we reviewed Marvin, Vishala, Ajani, Aaron, Michael and Camille of the Elijah Ministries, and Burton.  I found Marvin to be one of the more interesting characters in this book because of the destructive nature Facebook seemed to be causing in his and his wife’s life.  According to Miller, Facebook seemed to have exacerbated the common suspicion in Trinidad of “horning” by Marvin’s wife as Miller points out that the site “creates this world in which you can so quickly and easily do more than just obsess about”(8) other woman that Marvin, in this case, would talk to.  I noticed this trend continued as Burton’s wife also commonly checked his Faebook, though not necessarily for the same reasons (118-119).  I also found it interesting that the term “friending” had an intimate relationship connotation prior to Facebook and how Marvin’s area (not the majority of Trinidad), and specifically his wife, still implies it in that sense when remarking Facebook, despite knowing there was no relationship (10). What do you think of this trend in Trinidad?  Do you think it applies elsewhere? Would you, or have you ever, allowed a significant other to monitor your online activity?  Was there a character in the first part of the book you found yourself relating to the most and if yes how so?

I also thought much of Miller’s book addressed this idea of connections discussed in the forum by Dr. Pandian.  Not just connections in between spouses like in Marvin’s case, but also in the way it was presented with Vishala and by the members of the Elijah Centre.   I believe Miller points out the distinct advantages in connecting online in summarizing Vishala’s (who often IM’s twenty people at a time) thoughts; “With IM on Facebook, no one else know what you are saying to each other…people are much more ready to say things, personal things…on Facebook than in everyday life…it’s not just easier to tell the truth, Facebook is in itself more truthful as an encounter with people” (48). Perhaps it is this aspect that allows groups like the Elijah Centre to create “unprecedented possibilities for transnational communication” as they use the internet “as far more effective way to get the Word out” (89).  I find this idea interesting and yet hypocritical to myself as I see the internet as an anonymous, less connective place by the mere idea that I can not physically see or hear the person I am speaking with and yet I can see how this forum can be used to effectively gain followers of a religious organization.  What do you think about the connectivity of Facebook? Do you find yourself more “truthful” and open online with individuals? Can you see the advantages and disadvantages of connecting with people in both a physicall setting and one set through social media online?

The second part of the book, chapter B, examined through 15 theses what Facebook may be turning out to be in general and global terms.  One of the essays that struck me as particularly strong, and is addressed more in the “Representation” blog of the Anthropology of Media forum is that “Facebook provides an additional space for personal expression, especially a more creative or extravert public presence, which may previously have been much restricted” (169).  The essay further expresses the importance of Facebook in terms of representation and connection when “physical disability (seen in Dr. Karamath, chapter 3) seemed destined to end that sociable life” (170) as well as the idea that “Facebook seems to have revived and expanded” communities (182).  Dr. Pandian also contributed much in the “Imagination” section of the blog that Miller also discusses.  Miller contends that “one of the most significant impacts of Facebook will be on an internal world of fantasy and imagination, where many people spend much of their time” (177).  Facebook rather than past imaginations like Second Life relying on anonymity, indicates an end to this anonymity (177).  I believe Miller sums up the purpose of Facebook best when he says “Facebook works best when used to compensate for the deficiencies or stresses of other forms of communication” (184).  What do you feel are the most important implications of Facebook and its effect on our future?  Do you agree or disagree with any of Miller’s thoughts on where Facebook is heading?  What are your thoughts and preferences of anonymity (or privacy) online? How has Facebook compensated for deficiencies in other forms of communication for you?

Au Tales from Facebook 1

In Tales from Facebook, Miller explores several different fascinating aspects of what Facebook is, what Facebook means, and what Facebook does for different people. Each portrait of a person that he has interviewed is quite similar to a profile you might see on Facebook. We learn about their interests, their family or friends, what type of social life they lead, and what kind of personality they have. For someone like “Marvin”, Facebook can be seen as necessary for facilitating one’s business or professional life, while making his/her personal life more complicated. For instance, Marvin needs to spend a certain portion of his day communicating through Facebook because it is on Facebook where he can advertise cocoa products (for his business) and communicate with potential customers.

 However, because his wife realizes this, she is constantly looking over his shoulder, asking about any new friends he might have on Facebook, or how he knows this person or that person. In this chapter, Miller explains how Facebook can ruin relationships/marriages because it makes potential threats “more visible” (8). And though Marvin himself doesn’t exactly admit to pursuing other people online, it is clear that he does not prevent certain “clients” from advancing on him. I myself can testify to the power Facebook has over relationships. I had a long term relationship that ended in part because I had suspicions about cheating (which were true). I would not have had these suspicions if it were not for Facebook. Ultimately, the end of the relationship was for the better, but perhaps in some cases Facebook causes trouble where there aught not to be any.

In Chapter 4, Miller interviews a young woman named “Vishala.” This chapter brought to my attention the idea that people are more often going places for the purpose of being seen or having their presence documented through pictures so that those pictures can be put on Facebook. This is significant because it made me think about how more and more people’s identities are matching up with their identities on Facebook. Perhaps one day there will be no difference. If who we are depends on how others perceive us, then maybe our Facebook profiles are just another way to solidify how others perceive us, and eventually there will be no difference between who we are and our profiles on Facebook. Some may even say this is true already, especially for those who are Facebook friends with people they are not “friends” with in real life. Just like how people are gaining more and more capabilities to edit what they say through text or instant messaging as opposed to letters or phone calls, people are more and more able to edit their images to the public. We can choose what we expose of ourselves to the public. We can “untag” photographs or delete comments.

In Chapter 6, Miller introduces “Ajani,” and the concept that by making so much of his/her life public, one can fabricate a kind of buffer against society that makes their lives more private than one would ordinarily believe. Facebook serves as a creative and reliable release for Ajani, someone who must constantly share her thoughts with the world. But at the same time, despite her constant posts and updates, “you could spend a year on her Facebook and have no sense at all of her key relationships” (75). She keeps a good distance between herself and her onlookers.

Similarly, chapters 7, 8 and 10 describe what purpose Facebook serves for others. This includes “Aaron”, a teenager who uses Facebook as a means of after school communication with those from his school or girls from other schools, “Michael” and his wife who use Facebook as a way to spread the word about their Pentecostal beliefs, and a business man Burton, who like Marvin uses Facebook as a way to facilitate his work and make professional connections. In section B of Part II, Miller discusses the overall significance of Facebook, and what Facebook is. I thought it was fascinating that he described each individual as “quite literally a social networking site long before Facebook existed” (165). Does this mean that Facebook is actually a digitalization of what has already existed? The idea that cyberspace is a “place” rather than a thing is emphasized through Facebook. This also makes me think of the movie Tron which, for me at least provided a concrete depiction of what cyberspace would look like if we could see it as another world. Other concepts that were discussed in this section, include Facebook as meta-friend (the idea that we can have a relationship with Facebook itself, rather than just other people—that facebook is there for us at any hour, etc.), and that Facebook changes our relationship with time and space.

--Winnie Au 

Martinez iPods 1

In Sound Moves: iPod culture and urban experience, Michael Bull examined the influence of the iPod on modern day societal interactions. In the second section of the reading, Bull quotes Kleist describing the “multisensory pleasure, repulsion and contingency of city life which both assaults and stimulates his senses” (26). By this, Bull is emphasizing how the hustle and bustle of city life can be distracting, shocking all your senses, forcing people to “adjust to the physical, technological and psychological demands of the city” (28). In order to overcome this massive distraction people plug in their iPods. By blocking out the sound of horns honking, people talking on their phones, sirens and vendors, iPod users are given the freedom to adjust their “soundscape”.

The word soundtrack is commonly used when describing how iPod users view their surroundings. “I listen to music any time I can […] It [iPod] truly is my own personal jukebox, and puts the soundtrack to my life in my pocket and at my fingertips” (3). By blocking out any surrounding sounds, other senses are more attentive, particularly your sense of sight. Bull states “iPod users aim to create a privatized sound world, which is in harmony with their mood, orientation and surroundings, enabling them to re-spatialise urban experience through a process of solipsistic aestheticisation” (41). By this he means that iPod users have the ability to direct their surroundings based on the moods they are experiencing through the music they are listening to. Music has a transformative power over the urban environment as Susan described “I start to feel the environment in the sense of the mood of the song and can find that I can start to love a street that I usually hate, or feel scared for no reason”, or as Berklee puts it “the world looks friendlier, happier, and sunnier when I walk down he street with my iPod on. It feels as if I’m in a movie at times” (43). I can relate to this experience, especially when I think back to two summers ago when I biked across the country. I was constantly playing music to motivate myself to keep going, and I coordinated the music I was playing with the difficulty of the terrain.  My favorite song to play was “Sweet Disposition” by the Temper Trap. There was just something about that song that allowed me to transcend out of my body and into the moment, taking more notice of the amazing scenery I was passing along and the sensation of the wind hitting my face. My experience that summer is largely defined by its soundtrack.

Besides the iPod’s ability to transcend its listener and manipulate how they view their surroundings, Bull also discusses how the iPod isolates us from others and how “in iPod culture we have overpowering resources to construct urban spaces to our liking as we move through them, enclosed in our pleasurable and privatized sound bubble” (5). The iPod allows us to move solitarily through a crowded city street. How is that even possible? Bull goes on explaining how humans have a desire for solitude, but at the same time “contemporary consumers invariably feel a sense of discomfort when confronted with silence” (5). Listening to music on an iPod is able to relieve this contradictory desire for solitude and the fear of social isolation. This meaning, you can be comforted by the presence of hundreds of people walking past you on a busy street, while still being isolated from everyone in your little sound bubble. I am not quite sure if this is necessarily a good thing, because social interaction is a key aspect of the human experience. I find wearing headphones at the grocery store, or when you are walking around campus cold and uninviting. Interestingly enough, however, Bull also points out that “public spaced sometimes produce forms of collective recognition for iPod users, who sometimes see themselves as members of an imaginary community” (64). This is not the same imagined community that radio creates, because iPod users are not listening to the same message. It is rather an imagined community of Apple consumers, who recognize each other on the streets, in the gym or in the library. There is a universal understanding not to disturb someone listening to their iPod, so as to not “burst” their sound bubble.

-Adali Martinez 

O'Brien iPods 1

In Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience, by Michael Bull, the author examines the impact of iPods on current urban culture and social interactions. He examines the effect the iPod has on interpersonal relations as well as the relationship between the user and the environment in which the user experiences this medium. The main point that Bull seems to emphasize throughout his book is the privatization of public space (4) that iPod users are now in control of. People are no longer forced to listen to the sounds of the city or of other people in public domains such as sidewalks and subways because they can now immerse themselves in their own personal soundtracks to accompany their everyday lives.

I liked the point that Bull makes when he emphasizes that the iPod allows people to see the outside urban environment in different ways according to what kind of music they are playing at the moment. As Kracauer claims, “The world’s ugliness goes unnoticed” (45) as people allow their iPods to mediate the reality of the world in front of them and how they perceive that reality. 

However, the point in Bull’s book that I found to be the most disturbing was the point that people are more likely to “withdraw from the world in which they move” (36) into their own personal worlds and use iPod’s as a proverbial cloak of invisibility during everyday activities. For example, a man named Ivan proclaims that he is more likely to avoid the annoyance of homeless people asking him for money when he has his iPod playing (34). Not only can he not hear them, but the fact that he has the white earbuds in his ears sends an outward signal to those homeless people that they should not waste their time asking him for money because he will not direct his full attention to them. Additionally, a woman named Amanda exclaims that the iPod provides a socially acceptable excuse for her to ignore acknowledging and talking to people that she doesn’t want to interact with. She thinks that it is acceptable because “people think I can’t hear them because of my music instead of me just ignoring them on purpose.” (58)  Amanda’s quote emphasizes the fact that other people aren’t worthy of her full attention or even attention at all since she chooses to ignore their existence altogether in favor of listening to her iPod. 

Essentially, the use of iPods make for many happy individuals that are able to tolerate each other while they share the same public space at the same time. What do these sort of behaviors emerging from iPod use say about the way we are headed in the future in terms of interpersonal interactions? Will this privatization of public space inhibit the way we interact with other people face to face? Will this sense of individualism harm any social connections that we may make with others in a public setting? Do you think the iPod enhances the way we interact with our environment or hinders the amount of interaction we have with others in public places? 

Schulman iPods 2

            In his book, Sound Moves: iPod culture and urban experience, Michael Bull studies the cultural icon of the iPod and its place in the urban milieu. His introduction outlines the “increasing mobility and privatization”(2) of sound, from the fixed Gothic cathedrals to the Citroen DS, to the Sony ‘Walkman’ and now the iPod. The iPod enables a personalized “soundscape”, through which we are “no longer prey to the whims of the corporate radio"(2).
            Bull goes on to discuss the distinctive nature of the urban milieu that seems to necessitate the use of a personalized music-player for the modern city-dweller. The city is a cold, anonymous place, both socially isolating and polyrhythmic. It is noisy, crowded, and rife with difference. How do contemporary urbanites cope with their simultaneous needs for proximity and privacy? The iPod of course. Living in a world of “mediated we-ness”, music substitutes our “utopian longing” for ‘direct’ experience with ‘an illusion of immediacy’(5).  The iPod on one hand saves us from feelings of social isolation and serves our contradictory need for privacy.
            Bull explains in the bulk of our reading for this week, how iPod users move through “shared” urban space, in a way that enables them to control their environment. Quotes from Bull’s interviewees often point to the polyrhythmic soundscape of the urban environment, rife with noises, unpleasant and irritating. The iPod allows users to “drown out extraneous noise”, both “transforming” and “managing” the “repelling nature of urban life"(30-31) Thus, in a social world, created through the combinations of a multitude of sounds, contemporary urbanites are eager for control and security, achieved in essence, through the isolation of the self from others in a personalized auditory bubble. 

            Not only have iPod users “transformed the public spaces of the city into private enclaves of saturated sound”(34), but they have also aestheticized it. The “chilly nature”(38) of the city has prompted iPod users to transform their realities into more satisfying, aestheticized space. The iPod, with its personalized playlists empowers the user to interpret his or her world, while simultaneously remaining outside it. Many users expressed this sentiment, of being an “invisible, floating observer,”(43) or existing in a personalized movie script, in which the world mimics their moods and rhythms. The notion of “experiencing the world as a movie script”(45) struck me as similar to the feelings of Dr. Pandian’s interviewees in his exploration of the effects of cinema on rural farmers in India. How has the language of media and mediation become second nature to our immediate experiences? The aestheticization process of iPod users reverses the phenomenon described by Kracauer whereby the urban subject is colonized by the “dominant rhythms of the city”. Instead, with one’s iPod, the “world is drawn into the users individual narrative”, creating a subject who as one user describes, is “much bigger and more powerful [when] listening to music”(48). What are the implications of this reversal? How do our perception of reality and the urban environment change when we become masters of the mediated experience, no longer “diminished subjects”?
            Lastly, in his chapter “Interpersonal sound strategies and iPod culture”, Bull discusses the collective use of iPods in automobiles, places of work, and the home. iPod users, despite being encased in their personalized “soundscape” must continue to negotiate interactions with others that are somewhat unavoidable in the urban milieu. How has the iPod changed our understanding of appropriate human interaction? Bull points to consumers’ increasing comfort with no communication in public, the desire to “get in and out” in every day life, as Jain notes (52). The power iPod users felt in conjunction with their ability to shape their urban “public space” and environment with the various moods of their playlists is also relevant in their interactions with others while wearing the dangling white wires. iPod users are empowered to “choose the terms and conditions of potential interactions"(58). This power has transformed the notion of sharing space-- “it no longer necessarily means the sharing of the same set of experiences"(61). What do you make of this view of contemporary urban culture as shared space but separate experience? Bull ends this chapter stating that the iPod can provide “new forms of social possibilities” but that it remains the “archetypal privatizing technology"(65). His conclusion delineates the ubiquitous mediation of the iPod users’ world, which in it contains the dream of immediacy, unmediated experience, and direct access to our experiences and emotions. The illusion of immediacy provided by the iPod helps us to reconcile our dream with the reality of our mediated sensorium.
            As I was doing this reading, interestingly enough in a crowded, noisy bookstore, I became distracted by a patron whose tonality and volume I found grating akin to Wes, one of Bull’s interviewees. Without thinking, I put my iPod on in order to simultaneously defocus myself from the distraction and refocus on my reading; plugging into my personalized soundscape was the only way I felt I could pay attention, even though my environment was now technically “louder” than it had been before. How has our notion of what is distracting and focusing changed with the advent of the iPod and a personalized auditory experience? Do you feel that the iPod culture Bull describes is in fact particular to an urban milieu? How would iPod use in a different, less anonymous, more homogenous environment be perceived? What is the place of silence in society now that personalized auditory bubbles have replaced it as “golden”, or is it no longer possible to have silence in an urban environment? Can you relate to the experiences Bull’s subjects describes? What about them seems foreign or familiar? What are the ultimate implications for the future of a “social world” that has become increasingly individualistic?