Hey guys. Here's a list of the dates of my blog entries with the names of who commented on each one. A little last minute, but I hope it helps.
1/27
Chinchin, Lindsay
2/4
Su, Goli, Katie
2/15
David, Blake, Jennie
2/27
Su, Anthony, Nathaniel, Goli, David
3/6
Nathaniel, Goli, Anthony
3/9
David, Goli, Jenna
3/21
Jennie, Goli, Blake
4/2
Katie
4/9
Jennie, Anthony, Blake
4/14
Chinchin, Anthony, Goli
4/23
Anthony
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
I used to believe that my online correspondences were fully confidential. I could type an email or post a thread on Facebook free of the bothersome thought that it might get read by someone apart from whom it was intended. Perhaps unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Though I still have no idea how digital surveillance works, this class has made me much more aware of its prevalence and its implications for the privacy of our digital interactions.
In truth, the thought of Mark Zuckerberg reading over my shoulder doesn't really bother me. Nor does the notion that the folks at Google might be using the GPS in my Droid to track my every move. These are people I will in all likelihood never meet. But what does cause me a considerable amount of low-level anxiety is the thought of people I actually care about learning things about me I'd rather they not. I'm the type to put a lot of thought into what I write -- papers, emails, text messages you name it. I am fond of the delusion that when I sit down to write something, I can write it in such a way that will leave no doubt as to its meaning. This stems from a certain irrational fear of being misunderstood that has been with me since I was a kid. The thought of someone forming an 'erroneous' impression based on a 'misinterpretation' of something I've written used to cause me all kinds of stress. Even today, if I by chance stumble upon something I wrote that doesn't quite convey what I originally thought it would, I experience discomfort. I want to grab it and tear it to pieces. But I can't, because it's all online and it's never going to go away. Ever. There is simply no way around the deepening of our digital footprints.
The point of all this is simply to say that recent advancements in digital technologies have made 'impression management' somewhat more difficult than it used to be. In school, we're taught to get to know our audience before we sit down to compose. But while we're given plenty of opportunities to write for an audience of, ahem, one, we receive proportionately fewer opportunities to expose our writing to the 'everybody' of the Internet. As we all know from reading Brown, digital audiences cannot be defined by any sort of limit, because anyone and everyone uses the Internet. Never mind talk of the digital divide; the chances of you being able to predict with absolute certainty who will be viewing your party cup pictures on Facebook are about as close to zero as a percentage can get.
For a person with a deep-seated fear of misinterpretation, this is a scary, scary thought. But I am happy to report that after taking this class, I am somewhat more resigned to being misunderstood than I was just a few months ago. I've learned that what's great about the Internet is that it takes existing realities and places them under the microscope, magnifying them to the point of visibility. The ugly little skeletons in our digital closets are a constant reminder that, for all our efforts, impression management is futile. Offline, it's the same thing... all the time, we say and do things that create fissures in our ego shells, exposing the limits of our self-constructed identities. Thing is, we don't notice when there's no record. In keeping a record, the Internet laughs in our face.
The 'problem' is not that we misinterpret... rather, it's that no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot resist the urge to interpret, to assign meaning, to fully understand. So we take lots of shots, and sometimes we shoot a pretty poor percentage. But when we're on, the sharing and communication that result is often magic.
In truth, the thought of Mark Zuckerberg reading over my shoulder doesn't really bother me. Nor does the notion that the folks at Google might be using the GPS in my Droid to track my every move. These are people I will in all likelihood never meet. But what does cause me a considerable amount of low-level anxiety is the thought of people I actually care about learning things about me I'd rather they not. I'm the type to put a lot of thought into what I write -- papers, emails, text messages you name it. I am fond of the delusion that when I sit down to write something, I can write it in such a way that will leave no doubt as to its meaning. This stems from a certain irrational fear of being misunderstood that has been with me since I was a kid. The thought of someone forming an 'erroneous' impression based on a 'misinterpretation' of something I've written used to cause me all kinds of stress. Even today, if I by chance stumble upon something I wrote that doesn't quite convey what I originally thought it would, I experience discomfort. I want to grab it and tear it to pieces. But I can't, because it's all online and it's never going to go away. Ever. There is simply no way around the deepening of our digital footprints.
The point of all this is simply to say that recent advancements in digital technologies have made 'impression management' somewhat more difficult than it used to be. In school, we're taught to get to know our audience before we sit down to compose. But while we're given plenty of opportunities to write for an audience of, ahem, one, we receive proportionately fewer opportunities to expose our writing to the 'everybody' of the Internet. As we all know from reading Brown, digital audiences cannot be defined by any sort of limit, because anyone and everyone uses the Internet. Never mind talk of the digital divide; the chances of you being able to predict with absolute certainty who will be viewing your party cup pictures on Facebook are about as close to zero as a percentage can get.
For a person with a deep-seated fear of misinterpretation, this is a scary, scary thought. But I am happy to report that after taking this class, I am somewhat more resigned to being misunderstood than I was just a few months ago. I've learned that what's great about the Internet is that it takes existing realities and places them under the microscope, magnifying them to the point of visibility. The ugly little skeletons in our digital closets are a constant reminder that, for all our efforts, impression management is futile. Offline, it's the same thing... all the time, we say and do things that create fissures in our ego shells, exposing the limits of our self-constructed identities. Thing is, we don't notice when there's no record. In keeping a record, the Internet laughs in our face.
The 'problem' is not that we misinterpret... rather, it's that no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot resist the urge to interpret, to assign meaning, to fully understand. So we take lots of shots, and sometimes we shoot a pretty poor percentage. But when we're on, the sharing and communication that result is often magic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)