I’m tired of this

As I was preparing to write this blog, I read this excerpt from the book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age By Sherry Turkle. As I was reading it, I got defensive, and then I got frustrated, and then I wanted to throw my laptop on the floor- but I didn’t because I knew that’s just what Sherry Turkle would have wanted. 

I am very conscious of the burdens of technology. The negative impacts of social media and technology is well documented, whether it be the daily distraction or connections to anxiety and depression.

HOWEVER, I think it’s time to flip the narrative. Now, I want to talk about the resilience of the human mind, our capacity for socialization, and the lived experiences of the children of the digital era.

Turkle

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age was published in 2015 around the time I was in sophmore year or high school. Sherry Turkle is a licensed clinical psychologist who has spent her career studying the relationships between humans and technology.

One major assertion she makes is that the departure from face-to-face conversations and the introduction of text and email is destroying the “conversation,” thereby resulting in a decline in empathy among young people. 

What I find ironic is that Turkle is failing to empathize with the generation in question. There is certainly no conversation to be found in the text. It comes off as a claim of communication exceptionalism.

The image conjured in my mind is that of an old woman shaking a cane at me and telling me to get off her lawn. 

The Responsibilities of Friendship

It may sound like I’m being hard on Turkle, but she took some jabs at me as well (intentional or not).

She said, “From the early days, I saw that computers offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship and then, as the programs got really good, the illusion of friendship without the demands of intimacy.”

Let’s have an exercise in empathy:

You’re in middle school. You sit in the passenger seat of your mother’s car and stare out the window as she drives you to the mall. However, this mall is 45 minutes away; it’s the most central location your friends could think of since everyone lives in different towns. You met them on Tumblr and you call them on Skype every day when you get home from school. You tell them everything, and they tell you everything. Your mom grumbles as you hit traffic, “I just don’t understand why you can’t just find friends who live in the same town.”

Months have passed and you consider these people to be your closest friends. You’ve been there for each other for good times and for bad… this is a bad time. You keep pulling out your phone at soccer practice. You can’t stop checking because your friend is saying he is going to leave the friend group. The more the group shows concern for him, the more he pushes away. He stops responding to your texts. That night, you stay on skype with everybody and search through the phonebook for his dad’s number because this isn’t the first time your friend has threatened suicide. He never talks to you again, but he’s alive.

What did adults think we were texting about? “lol hi” “wut up? roflcopter” ”idk, my bff jill?” NO. Us dumb, “woefully indocterinated” kids were actually talking to one another. 

And yes, we knew the difference between text and face-to-face conversations.

The “Value Proposition”

Turkle spoke about talks she had with “new generations.” According to Turkle, the new generations said,

“If you text or iChat, isn’t that talking? And besides, you can get your message ‘right.’ What’s wrong with that?”

Turkle advocates for the potential of conversation to create “imperfection, loss of control, and boredom.” She fears this is being lost. She claims, 

“Without conversation, studies show that we are less empathetic, less connected, less creative, and fulfilled… But to generations that grew up using their phones to text and message, these studies may be describing losses they don’t feel. They didn’t grow up with a lot of face to face talk.”

Let’s have another exercise in empathy:

You’re in high school and you’ve just started texting your crush. It’s actually going really well and even though you have school tomorrow, you stay awake. You close your eyes and wait for the next vibration of your phone on the pillow. Buzz….. buzz….. buzz. You reply too fast to each one. You smile in the light of the screen until you both succumb to exhaustion. You roll over in bed, holding a pillow to your heart- still smiling. In that moment you’re alone, but you feel light.

You start dating. This is your first real relationship, Your first love even? You date for several months, staying up late, sharing bits of yourselves that you’ve never shared with anyone. It’s amazing until it isn’t- he’s about to go to college and you’re still in high school. You try distance; you keep in touch over text, saying good morning and good night each day. When you’re lost in conversation on Facetime, nothing else matters. However, soon this physics, philosophy double major feels a little too enlightened for cell phones; he would neglect to charge it for days, leaving you in the dark. He breaks up with you over Skype. For the next 4 months, you want desperately to text him. Instead you write several long messages that bare your soul; that ask him all the questions you need answered; that call him all the names he deserves. Those messages get saved to drafts instead.

Human relationships are wrought with imperfection, loss of control, and boredom. They are also full of joy, humor, and love. Technology does not exclude us from the full range of human emotion. Humans actually learn to adapt to their situations with or without technology.

Furthermore, the idea that those who grew up with technology only interact with technology is absurd.

The Compulsion to Be Here With You Now

Turkle admires the life of famous transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, and his 3 chairs: solitude, friendship, and society. She talked about how technology breaks this cycle by distracting us or giving us falsified versions of the real thing. 

She goes on to praise a summer camp that restricts the use of cell phones, forcing children to appreciate nature and the company of one another.

Let’s embark on a final exercise in empathy.

The summer after senior year, you have a fire pit in the back yard with a few friends. It’s one of the last chances to spend time like this, one of the last chances to be a kid. You talk for hours, you play games, you laugh hysterically, and wonder out loud about what comes next. At one point you check your phone to find a slew of notifications. You hadn’t noticed. You didn’t think to check, you were too taken with the people and the stars overhead.

College comes and you make every effort to stay in touch over text, but it’s proving to be difficult. You try to be present in the moment and meet the people in your college class but you can’t tell if they like you or not. You feel most at home when you make time for those 3 hour long calls with old friends. You find out that the friendships that last are that ones where you can pick up right where you left off.

Children of the technological era have real relationships. Texting has its advantages, but I’ve never met a single person who prefers texting over the real thing. 

When we put away our phones, we do it because we want to be present with the people around us. It’s a choice rather than a last resort. Often we don’t even have to think about it.

Generations

I actually agree with a lot of what Turkle says. I also disagree with quite a bit of it. 

This isn’t the first technological revolution. This isn’t the first generation to misunderstand the one that came next. However it is happening bigger and faster than ever before.

I still believe that humans will retain their humanity. Each advancement ushers in something new, and something old is lost. The oral tradition gave way to the written word, radio gave way to the TV, the ugly duckling gave way to the swan, etc. 

These pieces of history should be preserved in some capacity, just as new isn’t alway better, old isn’t alway better. (and I don’t even believe face-to-face conversation is a thing of the past!)

Nostalgia for a time long past when the world was kinder and life was simpler is a delusion. Each generation, will in some capacity, think their upbringing is best.

What Makes Us Human

Turkle talked about the compulsion of pick up your phone so as to not be alone. Its true,  this is bad, but I’m tired of hearing that our generation is so mentally and emotionally stunted.

So Turkle, you’re telling me that you wax philosophical at the dinner table; you find kinship with your fellow man when you have to break an uncomfortable silence; and you discover a new dimension of your identity in the checkout line of the grocery store.

I just don’t believe you. And I don’t believe technology is this social ill that needs to be cured, not in that way.

People are starting businesses on Facebook, they’re sharing art on Instagram, they’re writing symphonies on Tik Tok. People are laughing, and debating, and learning, and falling in love, and breaking each other’s hearts, and putting themselves back together again all over technology: not because technology is so great, but because people are amazing.

Social media resembles reality, but not quite. It’s not a street corner where you can say whatever you want without consequence, but it is close. It is not a debate with someone over a kitchen table, but it’s close. Thanks to the development of social media, the world is greatly changed, but hauntingly the same.

This in-between space of ethical discourse has brought out the very best and the very worst in us. This sea change comes with its own problems and advantages. 

However, we are still trying to play by the old rulebook.

It’s all Greek to Me

Mark Zuckerberg has referred to Facebook as a “Public Forum.” The same was said about Twitter when a judge ruled that Trump blocking people no Twitter was infringing upon their first amendment rights. 

This idea of a public forum steps from the ancient Greek agora. Agora means meeting place. It was not only a market for goods, but a market for ideas. This place was located at the center of town. It was made to be accessible to all citizens. The Athenian Agora was the birthplace for democracy.

Some of the greatest minds (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) came to the The Athenian Agora to teach and to discuss.

So what would these great minds think of Mark Zuckerberg?

What went wrong?

How does Mark Zuckerberg’s public forum compare to The Athenian Agora. 

For one, it is privately owned. There community guidelines, new rules for what can be said. Why? Because anything a user says could implicate Facebook. Social media platforms censor users because allowing certain harmful opinions to exist on their watch will get them in trouble.

Another difference is the scale. Digital platforms stretch across the world. It is great to be this connected and get insights into new cultures. However, the sheer size of these public forums warps the community aspect of the agora. In Athens, if you came down to the agora and acted like a jerk, you would probably be condemned by the community.

This brings us to another key difference. With the scale of the internet comes immediacy of information. Now, if enough people notice you being a jerk in the agora, everyone will know.

This brings up another difference, that jerk doesn’t have to be in your agora anyway, He can just as easily find another one where people share his or her opinions.

The Digital Wild West

The use of the term public forum is a bastardization or at the very least, misguided. The internet is not real life and we have to stop pretending that we can play by the same rules.

This public/ private dichotomy has caused problems in the lives of many, especially young people. People who grew up with social media in their world, have formed their own cultures, subcultures, and rules for those communities. They are the pioneers who settled down on the edge of the frontier. They are capable, but they are wayward.

Existing in the digital world can affect your real life. As explained in the New York Times Article, The Secret Social Media Lives of Teenagers, the admissions of several Harvard students were rescinded after the discovery of offensive posts found on social media. 

Misinformation and propaganda is easily spread in social media. As posited in the book, Social Media Communication, “when are activist journalists not propagandists?”

The collision of these two worlds breaks down the rules of polite society. It is not Socrates’ Athenian Agora.

The “Conversation”

What makes for good discourse? What makes better people? How can we have all of the great parts of the internet without the bad?

Is the answer censorship? Education? Why are we leaving this all up to private companies?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that if we want a public forum, it should be public; if we want a marketplace of ideas, we have to believe in it first ; and if we want an agora, it needs to be a community too.

A couple years ago I went on a few dates with a guy that made VR films. I sat in his dining room and he put the headset on me, and was suddenly in a new reality. I was with him, but I wasn’t. A few months later, he moved across the country and I wasn’t with him, but I wanted to be. It’s hard to describe the dissonance I felt, but I think many people will know what I’m talking about.

In the Words of Walt Whitman

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

-An excerpt from Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric

Walt Whitman was a man. It would be generous to say he was eccentric; He was all around cooky. As a member of the transcendentalist movement the 1830s, he rejected society as he knew it. He believed in and embodied several teachings transcendentalist philosophy: that divinity pervades all nature and humanity.

Why am I talking about a hipster from the 1830s in a conversation about virtual reality? Stay with me.

Pay Attention

What does it mean to be present in the moment? To the pragmatists, it could mean to pay attention; to the hippies, it could be to feel one with everything; to the slackers, it could mean to show up.

I cannot understate how much of the intimacy in my life is virtual. I’ve nurtured friendships on social media, I’ve been in romantic relationships over skype. In today’s world, there is a new conversation about intimacy and technology. According to this article by International Society for Presence Research,

“Presence is maximized when a technology user’s perceptions fail to accurately acknowledge any role of the technology in the experience.”

But, how could this be possible?

All things please the soul

I’ve had a lot of time to consider how I could be fully present behind my screen. For years of my life, my relationships online were all I had. When I consider this, mind always returns to stanza 4 of Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric:

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,

To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?

I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,

All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

Walt Whitman is describing the point at which the soul and the body meets. I believe that his words speak to something deep in our nature. The anticipation, the anxiety, the release of being near one another… it speaks to the soul itself.

Virtual Society

So, where does this leave us? What would Whitman say now? 

There is a new demand for online sex parties, virtual reality platforms, and grandmas joining Facebook. Will it be enough?

I think back to the times when I could suspend my disbelief enough to forget the screen and miles between us: all this times it was suddenly 5 am and we were still on skype, all the times we just talked and talked because that’s all we could do.

As real as it all felt in the moment, I will never shake Whitman’s words.

The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,

The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,

The exquisite realization of health;

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,

O I say now these are the soul!

Still here

If the body is the soul and the soul is the body, then there is something sorely missing from my virtual world and relationships.

As mentioned in the New York Times Article, Are We Already Living in Virtual Reality?, psychologist, Philip Johnson-Laird, Argues that people don’t use logical rules to construct their perception; instead, we manipulate models of the world in our minds. It is these visions in our imagination that dictate to rules of our environment:

Following that logic, I can imagine what would happen if I shook your hand, brushed you with my elbow, or reached through the stupid computer screen to touch you.

To imagine that you are close to me is enough.

To pretend to be in your company is enough.

All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

• Is it enough to pretend to be with other people?
• Is there some part of human nature that requires physical contact?
• Are the body and the soul one and the same?
• How would Whitman react to these times? (I think he would probably run naked in the woods)

“@DennysDiner: welcome 2 the dennydome” no guys seriously wtf is up with the Denny's account… I think I love it

— thievius (@KahlSomers) June 4, 2014

welcome 2 the dennydome

I remember seeing Denny’s tweets back in 2014. They made me feel something. Was it camaraderie? Relief? Mutual trust? It was unusual for a brand to say something so stupid, and I loved it.

Are We Postmodernism Yet?

Before we dive into the world of Brand Twitter, Lets talk about something.

Postmodernism. We are all aware of the term, and some people even know what it is. I’ve often heard it defined as a rejection of the commonly held beliefs of the time. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the term’s etymology can be traced back to 1979 as a rejection of the cultural norms of the 50s and 60s. 

But how do you know when you are in a postmodern world? If we exist in an ever-changing culture, are we in a perpetual state of post, post postmodernism? Postmodern movements are often skeptical of authority, supporting the idea that culture is not fixed in regards to moral code, norms, and the arts, and reinvigorate the retro.

We may see ourselves in these sentiments, however, there is a simpler way. One need only look at the advertisements.

Not your Father’s Root Beer 

In order to survive, advertisers have to be in lockstep with the current zeitgeist. In turn, the advertisements and marketing we see every day are a mirror held up to society. Though we may not always want to admit it, marketers show us our wants, our needs, our desires; and they will utilize whatever mediums or messages it takes to get to us.

Today, that medium is social media. As touched on in Chapter 3 of the book, Social Media Communication, The social media shift is impacting all aspects of the industry—from the newsroom to advertising and management. Marketing and PR teams will succeed based on their ability to acquire social capital.

“Gaining social capital really means becoming a strong, consistent member of the online community”

So, like chameleons, companies will have to endear themselves to consumers; in order to do this, they must have an understanding of the current societal trends and norms.

Subvert Me 

I believe, in many ways, one could categorize GenZ and Millennial internet culture are a postmodern movement. It is certainly a subversion of the expectations set by the Baby Boomer generation. Memes like “okay, boomer” are a testament to this fact. It seems that older generations are being excluded from acquiring this social capital.

Chapter 4 of Social Media Communication lists the benefits of increased social capital: 

Trust, shared norms and values, shared resources and knowledge, reciprocity, resilience within relationships, coordination and cooperation for the achievement of common goals.

In order to reach their markets, older generations that want Gen Z money have to successfully infiltrate social media communities. However, Gen Z can usually sniff it out. We don’t want “Pokemon Go to the polls,” But for whatever reason, we want the untimely death of Mr Peanut.

The Absurdist Paradise That is Brand Twitter

I hear it all the time from my friends: “the internet ruined my humor.”

One example of postmodernism from younger generations is absurdist humor and meme culture. The nature of comedy is already founded on subverting expectations. Some Gen Z memes subvert the idea of a joke all together.

A variety of media reflects this phenomenon, but let’s look at brand twitter.

@OldSpice Is your deodorant made with really old spices?

— Taco Bell (@tacobell) July 9, 2012

If you're asking a fast food Twitter this relationship might be doomed

— Wendy's (@Wendys) February 14, 2017

Yes @Tmobile, we're into BDSM. Bigger coverage map, Devastating Speed, and Massive capacity.

— Verizon (@Verizon) February 6, 2017

I can’t do this anymore

— SUNNYD (@sunnydelight) February 4, 2019

You can’t tell me a brand would have broadcasted these messages in any other place, and any other time.

They aren’t that edgy, they still have to sell something, but the have a certain darkness, irreverence, or absurdity that we are no accustomed to seem from brands.

A quote from the Vulture article, Brand Twitter Grows Up, highlights how Brand Twitter, as a whole, found itself in 2018:

“2018 was the year it went mainstream. Users talked about brands like they were celebrities, admired their cleverness, embraced their absurdity, and even wanted to get roasted for fun. The impact of communities like r/FellowKids dwindled because brands were in on the joke”

Thats what we all want: to be in on the joke.

Leveraging social capital require two way communication, so brands have to meet culture where it is.

What Does it Mean?

Brand Twitter is not the hero we want, bu the hero that we deserve. We are inundated with advertisements constantly. It’s nice to know theres a human being on the other end of that. As Trey Smith of Vice said:

one of the things people forget about brand twitter accounts is that they're usually run by someone just like you or me and the corporate overlords yall swear to god are directing their social teams to tweet like that actually have no idea their company has a twitter account

— Trey Smith (@SlimiHendrix) February 5, 2019

In order to stay relevant, brands have to adapt to a changing landscape. In the case, I’d argue, a postmodern landscape.

It is a landscape the is reliant on principles of subversion, anti-establishment, and exclusion. It manifests in culture and online through a generational divide.

Postmodernism is often a critique consumer culture!

This environment is not good for traditional, family friendly advertising.

So, with the ever-powerful motivation of shilling products, brands have adopted the postmodern.

• Does it work? Does it further alienate?
• Is Brand twitter refreshing or cringe-worthy?
• What kind of trouble can brands run into with their irreverence?
• How do brands fit into our culture? How can they acquire social capital in a postmodern landscape?

Friendships happen in unlikely places. For a good part of my life, I had friends that lived in this little talking device I carried around. It wasn’t much but they made me laugh and cry and told me things I didn’t know. I found that when I was loneliest, I could feel less alone.

Lonely Girl

I know what it sounds like, but let’s not all start feeling bad for the lonely girl with no real friends. I DO have real life friendships. There is just a specific place in my heart for the podcasts I listen to.

My family never played music in the car. Nerds that they are, my parents were partial to audiobooks and public radio. I was a little behind as a reader, so audio-based storytelling was a tenet of my childhood. I remember sitting in the back seat, listening to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and pretending I knew any of the answers to the questions.

When I grew up and continued subscribing and listening, I started to feel connections with people I never met. As explained in the New York Times Magazine Article, Even Nobodies Have Fans Now, these were parasocial relationships: one-sided relationships where the participating party is so charmed by the other that they feel a level of intimacy, relation, and comfortability. 

The article went on to give a very apt description of podcast listeners and fans: 

“They are no longer merely worshipers of a top-down product but creators and stewards of a shared, bottom-up identity.”

If I ever needed a friend, wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I could listen to those people that lived in a box in my pocket.

The Most Trusted Man In America. 

As I listened to podcasts, found favorites, and formed these relationships in my mind, I realized what made them so valuable: trust. 

Although I wasn’t around to see him in action, I’ve always heard the name Walter Cronkite. He was known as the “Most Trusted Man In America.” In the 60s and 70s he was widely regarded for his straight talking. In NPR’s Weekend Edition piece on his death, they recounted what made him so great: 

“He was absolutely in favor of giving the American people what they needed to know, not what they wanted to hear.”

He represented something that people could put their faith in during a time of uncertainty. His Editorial edge and humanity created a powerful parasocial relationship with the American people

This being said it is important to remember that Cronkite’s credibility is in part a product of an era that simply had more trust in authority. 

As a nation, we have developed and changed in huge ways compared to the Cronkite era, for better or for worse.

Accessibility, Editorialism, and Parasocial Intimacy.

Accessibility, editorialism, and parasocial intimacy. This is the formula that makes podcasting such a powerful medium in today’s world.

Accessibility

Accessibility is not only a courtesy, but a an important quality to have in a world that likes getting things on demand

As a slow reader, I have become partial to audio mediums for my information, news, and entertainment. However, even for the most talented reader, podcasts still offer a simple way to get information with a busy schedule. 

Podcasts can be enjoyed in “found time”: while exercising, during a commute, or (for the brave) while doing work.

Editorialism

Editorialism is a more precise, dynamic methodology to disseminating the news and information. 

In the age of the internet when people are more distrustful of the mainstream media and government, they will likely turn to the free market of information. 

Although our information network is far from perfect, editorializing content and offering a unique and authentic perspective is valuable.

Parasocial Intimacy

Parasocial intimacy is (in my mind) the most important piece of the puzzle. I give my time and attention to these podcasters because I feel a connection with them. I trust them and want to hear what they have to say because I believe it is genuine. 

Most podcasts are crowdfunded or rely on minimal affiliate marketing deals. 

There are no corporations doing backroom deals and shaping the narrative. There are just genuine people that talk in my ear, and for whom I have grown to love and want as a part of my life.

The Medium is the Message

In the Atlantic article, Inside the Podcast Brain: Why Do Audio Stories Captivate?, communications professor, Emma Rodero, spoke about the personal quality of audio-based storytelling: 

“Audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are constantly building your own images of the story in your mind and you’re creating your own production,”

I know this phenomenon well. 

I believe this medium is an important one, but I am aware of my own bias. I have listened to podcasts for a long time and can no longer imagine my life without them. 

What role does this medium play in relation to the broader market of information?

What are the pitfalls of relying too heavily on Podcasts for your information?

What does the popularity of podcasting (listening, making, etc) say about this generation?

When I was listening to podcasts to cure loneliness, I hadn’t considered the variety of human needs I was tapping into. I believe, like Cronkite, When something has humanity, it has power.

In freshman year of college I found a little diamond-in-the-rough podcast called Why Oh Why, hosted by Andrea Silenzi. It was a podcast about dating, in particular: online dating. I didn’t know why the podcast resonated with me until now.

The Game

I had just broken up with my high school boyfriend. I was wayward, in love with everyone I saw. My friend, Alex, made me a tinder as a joke. The bio said something like “Art school girl, loves adventures and traveling, open to anything as long as I’m the center of attention.” We swiped and and swiped did our best to make a mockery of the whole thing. The app itself lived in my games folder.

It wasn’t long, however, until I rewrote my bio, listing my interests, my hobbies, and my dreams. I replaced the pictures with better ones to convince them that I was social, creative, pretty, etc. The game had entered my real life.

Guilty Pleasure

The disillusionment model: used in reference to relationships in which each person’s positive perceptions of one another are broken by the minutiae of everyday life.

Expectancy violations theory (EVT): refers to heightened feelings of person-related disappointment. This occurs when a person’s expectations are violated.

In the Article, Guilty Pleasure? Communicating Sexually Explicit Content on Dating Apps and Disillusionment with App Usage published in the journal, Human Communication Research, a study measured disillusionment in dating app users. The study examines how pre-existing opinions about sexual content, motives and expectations around dating app usage, and self selection variables such as gender, sociosexuality, and enjoyment of self-objectification affect levels of disillusionment with sexually explicit content. Encountering explicit content is inevitable when you are a woman on a dating app. It is fascinating, however, to see what your behaviors can tell you about yourself.

On Tinder, I noticed several behaviors in myself: 

• I had a low tolerance for unsolicited sexual content.
• I was surprised when especially attractive people matched with me
• I was averse to putting in any more effort than I had to in conversations
• I was easily bored and fickle
• I pursued a conversation if I sensed that the person was as disillusioned as I was

The dates I went on were all perfect disasters and hilarious stories I still tell to this day. Although I was enjoying playing the game, I was no closer to fulfilment.

Why Oh Why

In freshman year of college I found a little diamond-in-the-rough podcast called Why Oh Why, hosted by Andrea Silenzi. It was a podcast about dating, in particular: online dating. 

As I listened to the Why Oh Why podcast alone in my dorm, Andrea took me through her online dating journey. She was older than me and more conscious of her biological clock, but the things she had to say struck a chord. 

As women, we may feel like we need the advice of an economist. Andrea talks about the concept to the reverse timeline: 

“Once a woman decides she wants to have kids it changes how she dates. She does this backwards math to determine by what age should be meeting a lifelong partner… I see the timeline playing out on my friend’s Facebook pages all the time don’t you?”

She was disillusioned with the process of dating. She wanted for love to fit into her plan.

In episode #8: How will I know? she spoke to economist Tim Harford, from NPR’s Planet Money. She was as disillusioned, (like I had come to be in a semester). She asked an economist how to optimize her experience. 

Andrea Silenzi: “I think what I’m trying to optimize here is – if I’m going to spend time – you know, I’m going to set aside a Thursday… I want to make it worth my time. I want to make sure that I’m – I don’t want to waste a Thursday.”

Tim Harford: “The scarce resource here is not men. The scarce resource is Thursday.”

From there, they arrived at the idea of a Skype call instead of a first date. In the interest of saving Andrea time, and money, and disillusionment. The one man she tried it with was a man named Mike. The call was recorded for the show. 

Andrea: “This is so weird!”

Mike: (laughing) “Yeah, hey, it was your idea.”

Andrea: “No it’s an economist’s idea… But it was my idea to take dating advice from an economist.”

They laughed at the absurdity of the situation. The two spoke for a while per Harford’s advice and eventually they fell in love.

Who knew Economists had the key to love the whole time right?

The Paradox

“We’re not gonna make it are we?” Andrea recounted the end of her relationship with Mike. She remembered the time they had shared together in the gentle, human, melancholy way that only she could do. 

“I still keep a list on my phone of all the stuff I wanna tell you about.” She said.

(just like I do)

Episode #8 was not a story about how an economist’s dating advice solved all her problems. It wasn’t the story of how a relationship solved all her problems. It was a personal account of a love that began with good intentions and great expectations, but turned out to be as messy and flawed as all love tends to be.

Economics is like doing math where the numbers have their own agendas. Being a woman in the dating world is much the same. How do we avoid disillusionment and find lasting relationships. How does a woman navigate this paradox?

At 18 I didn’t have to know the answer, but Andrea’s story gave me a strange kind of solace. Perhaps I can avoid being violated by facing my expectations. For me, the cure to disillusionment is comfortability in the unpredictable nature of love. 

a small town facebook group, with a lot to say

In 2015, my mom bit the bullet. As a longer time adversary of Facebook any everything it stood for, my 60 year old mother was finally asking me to make her an account so she could keep up with her book group. I obliged and helped her find the right pictures and privacy settings to use. My only condition was this: whatever you do, do not go on Winchester MA, Residents.

A Social Network or a Social Experiment?

At first glance, the group appeared to be a town Facebook page where people would post about lost cats, and promote local businesses. In the small affluent town of Winchester, MA, every resident in town could gain access to the page as long as they had a facebook account. It seemed benign; however to me, it was a fascinating social experiment.

Naturally, each member had a different level of digital literacy. In Social Media, Enduring Principles by Ashlee Humphrees, literacy is defined as “having mastery over the processes by means of which culturally significant information is encoded.” This definition translates to “digital literacy” by making these processes, resources, and cultural capital digital.

What happens when people with varying levels of digital literacy, different generations, and different political views enter the wild west of a private Facebook group?

Round One: FIGHT

In high school, I would come to school and hear people buzzing about the latest “debate” on Winchester Residents. The fights often resorted to petty back and forths and ad hominem. Many people trolled the comment threads with the intention to provoke. Others saw the page as a place to stand on a soap box and write essays about their two cents.

One of the most commonly recurring arguments was about the Town Mascot: the Sachem.

Inevitably, political differences took their toll on the discourse of the group. For a controversial post, the comment section would average 200-300 comments.

The issues with these threads are twofold: the quality of discussion and the effectiveness of discussion. The platform itself changes the way we debate. Instead of traditional town forums, the channel of communication dismantles any chance for compromise. Growing up, I observed that behind computers, people are bolder and meaner; they have access to sources reinforcing their view at their fingertips. 

In many cases, those with more computer literacy were fast to make their point with the cultural capital at their disposal. Those with less cultural capital seemed to double down on their beliefs in response

The Best Minds of Our Generation?

Ashlee Humphrees defines habitus as “the context into which one is socialized.” It is well known that Millenials and GenZ are more socialized in a digital environment than their Baby Boomer counterparts.

The generational miscommunications were too many to count but this was one of my favorites.

An AP US history student as the high school wrote a long declaration about why he believed we should have a snow day. He used a lot of flower language and historical references; he concluded it by saying “I speak on behalf of all my suffering classmates. We hope that Ms Evans reconsiders, and that our dystopian society will gradually improve. Sincerely, an advocate for Jacksonian democracy.”  

While the post seemed satirical to me and most of my other peers, many members of the older generation took it very seriously.

Being GenZ, I have been socialized to identify a troll or a meme when I see one. As is the case with many generational divides, things get lost in communication. On Winchester residents, I witnessed a clash of generations- a beautiful cacophony of miscommunication. I believe this little page is a perfect microcosm of the generational, political, and identitarian rift.

Ok, Boomer

The OK, Boomer meme represents something I have been privy to ever since joining Winchester Residents. The New York Times called it “the end of friendly generational relations.” However, the process of generational divide has been alive and well before Ok, Boomer; The process itself has been exacerbated by digital inequality.

Why does this matter? 

Suddenly we have a lot to talk about but we are not speaking the same language. We are woefully unequipped to talk about important issues online, not everything is as simple as a lost cat in a town Facebook page.

Many Winchester, MA Residents members featured in the screenshots have been banned from the group for rocking the boat, removed from the conversation all together. Is this our only solution?

How do we bridge the gap? And could we ever do so in the Facebook comments section?

“Should a happiness machine be something you can carry in your pocket or should it be something that carries you in its pocket? One thing I absolutely know,” he said aloud. ‘It should be bright!'”

Ray Bradbury’s short story, The Happiness Machine, published in 1957 predicted the modern day relationship between man and machine. The effects of social media on happiness, loneliness and connectedness are well documented; the results are worrying. Due to increased concern over how social media affects our well being, industry leaders are affirming their commitment to promoting community and togetherness. But, just how effective can this mission be? and why doesn’t The Happiness Machine work?

How to Make a Happiness Machine

Let’s appeal to the wisdom of another era, before smartphones entered our world. In The Happiness Machine, Bradbury tells the story of an inventor named Leo Auffmann and his wife, Lena Auffmann. Leo’s goal is to repair the relationship between man and machine by inventing a Happiness Machine. He investigates the pleasure of life and becomes consumed with the project. 

Today, people are constantly in need of stimulation, entertainment, and pleasure. Digital platforms fulfill this need. However, after coming under scrutiny for negatively impacting lives and minds, Facebook developed research initiatives to examine and improve the way we use the platform. One could say their mission is similar to that of Leo Auffmann.

A Cautionary Tale

What is the problem with how platforms like Facebook fulfill the market need for pleasure and entertainment? In the story, when Leo’s wife, Lena, tries the machine, she sees and experiences the wonders of the world, she smells perfume and feels like she’s dancing. However, she is happy only for a time. To Leo’s confusion, Lena soon begins to cry harder and harder.

In the NPR Podcast, Why Social Media Isn’t Always Very Social with Shankar Vedantam they expound upon why social media breeds unhappiness. Studies show higher levels of social isolation among social media users. As posited in the podcast, “…this might be because our online lives fail to match up with our real ones.” In the case study they used, the social media user was not only comparing herself to the the lives of her friends, but to the misrepresentation of her own life. Lena Auffmann felt something similar in The Happiness Machine.

“No, no! It’s not important. It shouldn’t be important. But your machine says it’s important! So I believe! It’ll be alright, Leo, after I cry some more.”

…

“Paris [I’ll] never see! Rome [I’ll] never visit.’ But I always knew that, so why tell me? Better to forget and make do, Leo, make do, eh?”

The Hedonic Treadmill

This story has a lot to say about happiness, how we seek it out, how we get it, and how we keep it. Lena’s experience was real in the moment, but once it was gone, she craved more. The hedonic treadmill theory posits that people will always return to a baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. In the story, Lena explains to her husband, 

“Leo- how long can you look at a sunset? Who wants a sunset to last? So, after a while, who would notice? Better, for a minute or two, a sunset. After that, let’s have something else. People are like that, Leo. How could you forget?”

Pleasure and excitement, fulfilling moments real or lived vicariously through social media: all of these things were not made to last. The flaw of the Happiness Machine is its attempt to manufacture happiness forever. Human beings will always be left wanting more.

Should a Happiness Machine be Something You Can Carry in Your Pocket?

The effect that social media has on the release of dopamine in the brain is well researched. The user interface of sites like Facebook and Instagram are designed to reward the brain with little bits of dopamine- the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. With the advent of smartphones, in conjunction with social media, we have invented Leo Auffmann’s Happiness Machine. The machine became not a method for happiness, but a requirement for it. Lena, explained in the story,

“I know only so long as this thing is here I’ll want to come out… and against [my] judgment sit in it and look at all those places so far away, and every time [I] will cry and be no fit family for you.”

Just as Lena desired to return to the machine against her better judgement, we constantly and mindlessly check our phones for another hit of dopamine. 

How to Fix the Happiness Machine

At the end of Bradbury’s story, the machine catches on fire. Lena watches to make sure it burns down. Leo reflects on his mistake, and stares through the front window of his house. He realizes he’s looking at the real Happiness Machine: his family and his home.

This emphasis on social and community values echoes in Facebook’s initiative to inspire “active use” of the platform. While this is a worthy endeavor, could a private company like Facebook ever achieve this end when lack of happiness is good for business?

I think we should heed the wisdom of the past in order to cultivate a brighter future.
– How can we avoid the fate of the Auffmanns?
– What is the true Happiness Machine and could we ever get it to work?
– Will Mark Zuckerberg have better luck inventing the Happiness Machine?
– Are we already trapped in Leo Auffmanns’ Machine with smartphones and social media?

I believe Leo and Lena Auffmann know the answer.

What am I to you? What do I look like? What do I sound like? 

These questions are, clearly, not unique to the environment of social media. They apply to the corporeal, all the way back to the early 1600s and the life of English philosopher, John Locke. Locke explores questions of perception, reality, and certainty. What might Locke have to say in 2020? Now more than ever, our platform society has afforded us increased levels of control over how others perceive us. It follows that the social media savvy may just be able to shape our reality.

Chapter 24: Social Media from the book, Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research covers the many uses of social media from the practical level to the conceptual. A user could utilize social media as a tool for the acquisition of social capital, the maintenance of relationships, and diffusion of information. Using social media is particularly advantageous in these departments due to its qualities of customization, curation, and efficiency. These qualities allow us to fudge the truth every now and again. Your followers will only see your best angle, and you will have those extra few seconds to think of something witty to say over IM. The curation of my social media profile tells a story about me. It is a short story, reduced down to an easy consumable morsel. For many, a social media profile is a newly cleaned room; you’ll step into the hall and return to it to see just how clean it would look to a stranger. How will they perceive you?

In order to appreciate the power of controlling perception, one must understand John Locke’s idea of “indirect realism” and the surrounding theories regarding the relationship between perception and reality. 

Imagine you are holding a cube, looking at it so it’s square face is pointing directly at you. Now imagine rotating it so one of the corners is pointing directly at you. 

Your square will become a hexagon. The cube itself didn’t change, your perception of it did. Commonly associated with John Locke, the theory of indirect realism offers an explanation for this phenomenon. The indirect realist believes that, in our world, there exists material objects (like the cube); however, when we observe a material object we are not looking at the object itself, but rather a mental image of the material object formed in the mind. The eye is like a camera, each mental image is like a photograph showing the subject from a variety of angles.

As described in Chapter 2: CMC Diffusion and Social Theories from the book, Social Media Communication, in social media, people have an online presence that is determined by what we want to share with others. This virtual representation of the self often approaches a certain ideal; achieving this ideal will likely help reap the benefits of social media. For this reason, it is very common for people to manipulate people’s perceptions online; users will be selective about which angle the cube is being shown, and which mental image in conjures. 

This extends beyond merely the aesthetic. By controlling the circumstances in which an image or sentiment is perceived, one controls reality. According to indirect realism, everything we see is a mind-dependent object, it’s state of being is reliant upon being perceived by a mind. Irish Philosopher, George Berkeley responded to Locke by saying the object’s very existence is reliant upon being perceived by a mind. This position is called idealism. While this may sound like a stretch, Berkeley was not arguing for the non-existence of this, but the existence of all things as a collection of ideas produced by the mind. 

How often do we question our own perception? Perceiving is the only method by which we can experience reality; consequently, we typically trust our senses and accept our own reality. When we follow a fitness account, a celebrity account, a news account, or even a personal account, the owner of the account imposes an unnatural mental image in our minds. These mental images are the building blocks of our reality. Your social media profile is a living document that gives you the power of self-representation. In a digital culture, this power may define your very existence and alter your reality.