Main Idea: technology and blogging have been passed down from generation to generation and are used to self represent ourselves today.
Key terms:
Mediation: Intervention in a dispute in order to resolve it.
Convex Mirror: Curved mirror in which reflective surface bulges toward the light source
Diaries: A book in which one keeps a record of oneself
Self-representation: Often used in court, but in this case is used to describe how one displays themselves via social media.
Broadband: a high-capacity transmission technique using a wide range of frequencies, which enables a large number of messages to be communicated simultaneously.
Summary: According to Jill Walker Rettburg, author of “Seeing Ourselves Through Technology”, there a three distinct modes of self representation. Written, visual, and quantitative. Each of these mode has been manifested in previous times before technology. Status updates are descendants of diaries which is in the written category. A form of visual arts today is a craze called the “selfie” which is a descendant from self portraits that individuals had hand painted in earlier years. A dorm of quantitative is individuals using “fitbits” and “apple watches” to keep track of their health. Health tracking was a lot more complex in earlier centuries. All forms of social media posting can be tracked from much earlier time frames in different forms. However, society has shaped how we do so by ridicule and labeling.
Commentary: The author does a great job at describing the history of self-representation through technology in this article. This describes perfectly at what I am afraid of happening to this newer generation. We are given an often unrealistic ideal of how our lives really should be. I often think about the influence these social media stars have on all of us individually. Some may look at their life-styles and aspire to be just like them. This can cause an individual to become discouraged in their efforts to strive to be like these people. This leads to low-self esteem which can lead to depression and can lead to more serious situations as well. I believe that we need to stop letting social media shape how we view ourselves and how we view the world altogether. I believe that the article could have done a better job at describing that rather than just give facts the whole time. Some examples could have been used on how to make the issue better, but she does provide factual evidence which can help others to solve this issue. All in all, it was interesting to see how technology and social media manipulate how we view ourselves and how we view the world. Now I’m not saying that we should rid of technology and social media completely. It is very beneficial and useful but we should be using it for its intended purpose. We have the world at our fingertips and what do we do with it? We use it to degrade others and waste time. We use it to look at cat videos and hide from our problems. It’s time that something changes.
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