The People Have the Power

I was looking through my interview clips the other night, because I am starting the editing stage of my project, when I came across a great interview clip of my friend Skylar. What makes what she said so great is that she mentions how we need to learn how to take control of technology and use it in moderation, which is very similar to what Sherry Turkle says in her interview with Stephen Colbert.

Below you can find clips to both Skylar's interview as well as Sherry Turkle's interview as well.

Although neither Sherry Turkle or my friend Skylar actually name technological determinism they both make reference to this idea that people have the power to step away from technology. Skylar actually talks about how after being abroad she finds it easier now to not use different social mediums and is actually able to turn her phone off, which is something that most students struggle with. In Turkle's book, Alone Together, she talks to this one girl who says that, "knowing she has a message makes her 'antsy'. She starts to worry. She needs to read the message" (245). Our generation has become dependent on technology and have actually started to develop anxiety from it because we are afraid we will "'miss something' and cannot put down [our] phone[s]" (242). However, Skylar has personally been able to overcome this struggle and realizes that this need to be connected and have the ability to find information at the touch of your fingertips can be more trouble then it's worth.

The general consensus of both Skylar and Sherry Turkle's interviews is that we need to learn how to use technology properly and not let it control our lives.

Works Cited:

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Voice Over Draft

What I am thinking now is to have it start off with me talking to the camera and then the rest of what I say becomes a voice over.

Here is a draft of my narrative...(so far and definitely a work in progress, just want to get my thoughts down on paper).

I wouldn't say that I am addicted to technology, but then maybe I am, the first step is admitting you have a problem and I know for a fact that my relationship with technology at times can be unhealthy. However, I can admit to this, not many people can, or not many people want to think about it. Just walk down a city street and see how many people are, as I like to say, plugged in. They have been transported to another location and aren't even aware of their surroundings. You know how many things I have almost walked into because of texting?

I remember the exact moment when I started to notice our dependency on technology. It was sophomore year of college and I was sitting in the corner of my giant triple listening to music while doing some homework. I had my headphones in so as to not disturb my two other roommates. However, when I finally turned around I noticed that they too were sitting in their own corners of their room with their headphones in as well, both watching different television shows. The funny thing is, that we had a great futon and tv in the middle of the room that we could all watch but we would rather be plugged in doing our own thing then sharing the moment together. That was the first turning point.

The second turning point occurred one day when I was walking to class and I surprisingly wasn't on my phone so I was able to actually take in the events around me. What I saw...pretty much every student that was walking from their class had their phones out. They were checking the text messages or emails that they missed while sitting in class.

It is because of these events that I started to understand the dangers of technology and how it was affecting us as a community and as students. I wasn't fully convinced that it was all bad, which is why I knew that second semester of sophomore year that I wanted to explore communicative technology further for my senior project.

This isn't my story, this is our generations story.

* This does not need to be told linear...I think that what should happen is that depending on the images different parts of what I wrote should be shown. However, I do think that the beginning of what I write should be part of the beginning of the movie. What I am picturing is me sitting in front of the camera and just talking to it, then I can show students interacting with technology and I will switch to a voice over.

* I have also been thinking about having quotes from Sherry Turkle and other readings that I have done throughout the film to tie everything together.

Took A Break...But Now I Am Back

Although I did post a couple of times over spring break I eventually stopped, I wish I could say it was because I tried to unplug myself, but in all honesty that did not happen. However, I did somewhat unplug from the computer. I still had my phone on me at all times, but I rarely turned my computer on. Although I wish I could say I did this because I have the will power to do this, it is simply not the case. The real reason I stopped going online and updating my blog was because the hotel we were staying at didn't have wireless. It had an ethernet cable to plug our computers into, but it didn't have wireless and therefore I found it way too tiring and annoying to go online. I couldn't just open up my computer and be online, instead I had to walk over take the ethernet cable and plug it into my computer (it's true I have really become the lazy). It's actually sad, but it made me think that maybe part of the reason why we have become so dependent on technology is because it is so simple and always there.

Over break I read a lot of Turkle's book Alone Together and she talks about what the word "vacation" has come to mean. I found this interesting and relevant because I was on a vacation. Turkle talks about how "on vacation, one vacates a place, not a set of responsibilities" (165). The norm and expectations of people is that while on vacation they are really just "working from someplace picturesque" (165). People are able to work because places where people vacation now make it easy for them to access ways for them to work. Turkle explains that, "advertisements for wireless networks routinely feature a handsome man or beautiful woman sitting on a beach...Now they are often implied" (165). That's why it was so interesting that the place I stayed at didn't have wireless and how that impacted my use of the internet. It was harder for me to stay plugged in making my break much more relaxing. But, alas back to school and back to the being constantly plugged.


Works Cited:

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Too Far From The Truth?

Although I am regrettably on my computer on my spring "break." Can I really be on a "break" while still totally connected to my technology? But because I am still plugged in despite being miles away from campus I have been able to see these two commercials for Virgin Mobile.





I am a little wierded out by the commercials but I have to question is it really that far away from the truth? I mean, when advertising companies create commercials it is to make their products more appealing to consumers. So, they obviously think that this stalkerish girlfriend character in the commercial will appeal to someone because they see that the way this character uses her phone is the same way that most adolescents use their phones these days. However, I still find the commercials extremely creepy because even if it is a bit of an over exaggeration the fact of the matter is it obviously exists otherwise they would never had created the commercial to begin with.

Warm Weather and A Little Technology on the Side...

About 12 hours later and we have finally arrived in Florida, warm weather greeted us, but the reason I am taking this time to blog about my spring break trip isn't because I am bragging and trying to make you all jealous that you're stuck up North while I am going to be working on my tan. No, the real reason that I am taking the time out of my "break" is because of what I noticed while I was in the airport waiting to board my plane.

It's funny because I was actually reading Sherry Turkle's new book, Alone Together, when I started to notice some interesting things developing around me. Although my project is about how technology affects the St. Lawrence community I still find it relevant and valid to blog about my time at the airport because although what occurred around me wasn't just based off the actions of my fellow teammates but numerous random people, it is important because it helps put things in perspective. Meaning, SLU as a community isn't the only place affected by technology, the entire world is.

So back to Turkle, I was sitting in the airport reading her book when I started to procrastinate a little and looked up from my reading to find almost everyone around me plugged into their laptops or cellphones. One girl on my team had her laptop open and was updating her twitter page to say that she was going to Florida for spring break. A couple of the boys on the men's team all had their cell phones out and were either texting or were just holding it for comfort. The kids on the team weren't the only people plugged in, pretty much everyone had their laptops out and headphones in to help them tune out their surroundings. I even walked by one man who was playing a video game, and from the quick glimpse that I got it looked like it was a multi-player game.

So, like the good little ethnographic observer that I am I pulled out my notebook and wrote some notes about what I was noticing and then returned to reading Turkle. Then it was as if the planets lined up because Turkle actually mentioned the phenomenon that I was witnessing in the airport right in her book. Turkle explains that "these days, being connected depends not on our distance from each other but from available communications technology...In this new regime, a train station (like an airport, a cafe, or a park) is no longer a communal space but a place of social collection: people come together but do not speak to each other. Each is tethered to a mobile device and to the people and places to which that device serves as a portal" (155). What Turkle is saying about everyone being "tethered" to their mobile device or computers is what I was witnessing in the airport. We were all there for the same reason, to fly someplace but we weren't talking or interacting with one another, even those of us who knew each other. We were too busy texting friends trying to make them jealous about our trip or updating our facebook and twitter statuses'.

On a separate yet still relevant note I again witnessed something interesting and note worthy on the plane ride. Sitting in front of me was a family with their son who could not be older than 2, I'm pretty sure he is probably 1 since he wasn't talking, but I digress. The little baby was actually holding and playing with his mother's iphone. He actually knew what to do and was tapping the screen just like how he had seen his mom do it. At some points the mom took the phone from the child but still held it in front of him so that he could see how she was working it. I found this interaction extremely interesting because this child is going to represent a new generation, a generation that has been involved with technology from before he could talk. Turkle mentions throughout the book how teens now a days are growing up differently. For example teens these days fear talking on the phone because "a telephone call can seem fearsome because it reveals too much" (188). So after watching this child interact with technology I am starting to wonder what is next for this upcoming generation, will they not even be able to communicate through text?

Works Cited:

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Interview with Professor MacGregor

I have chosen to share a rough edited version of this interview I had with Professor MacGregor because out of all the interviews I have done so far this one has been the most enjoyable. I imagine that is because it was very comfortable and was almost like having a conversation with someone who is just as interested in this topic as I am. Not only that but being a professor gives her a lot more credibility and it was interesting conducting that type of interview. Most of the other interviews I had were with students so what they said was mostly just to see what they thought about technology and what they had noticed on the SLU campus, however by talking to a Professor who has looked into this subject you get a different angle on the topic.

The original interview was about 20 minutes and I have just cut it down to over 4 minutes of some of the interesting information I thought Professor MacGregor touched upon. There is a lot more information that she talks about that I am not counting out, it is just for now I think what I have edited to is the most important thing to look at.

Just like my friend Sam, Professor MacGregor talks about how social networks are used as a way of representing ourselves. In part of the interview that I cut out she mentions how her class studied different social networks, like facebook, twitter, blogging, second life etc. and compared how the representation of the self was presented in these different social networks. However, after watching the interview a few times I realize that although she mentions what her class did she never explains any of the similarities or differences she and the class noticed among these different networks. This was my own fault because when interviewing her I should have asked her what she noticed, but unfortunately I didn't. However, I think this would be really important information so as the project progresses I may reach out to her again and see if she would be willing to elaborate more on that topic. Here is the short clip of her interview.



Another interesting thing that Professor MacGregor mentions are the experiments she and her students did with multitasking. I found this interesting because in the book I've been reading called, Rewired talks about the difference in generational multitasking. According to the book, "The New Generation and iGeneration preteens, teens, and young adults imagined doing more than six things simultaneously during their free time" (33). However, just like Professor MacGregor's research with SLU students, research has shown that "multitasking often leads to slower performance and increased errors" (76). Within the book there is a chart set up, which shows that Net-Gen and iGen multitask 73% of the time when they are talking face-to-face, 79% of the time when they are texting, 79% of the time when they are surfing the web, and 88% of the time when they are listening to music (82).

Overall this video is just a quick edit I have done and it just from the camera I set up as a mid shot and don't use to make close ups. While this camera stays on its tripod and rolls I have another camera in my hand that I use to zoom in on their hands and faces. When putting the project together I am going to inter cut between the two.

Also while editing this interview I tried to add music in the background but couldn't seem to be able to. I am glad I am figuring this out now than later so I can talk to Amy about what I did wrong and we can see how we can fix it.

Works Cited:

Rosen, Larry D. Rewired. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

The Meaning of Friends

A couple posts ago I recapped how the event I created on facebook was doing. What I noticed was that the majority of people who responded "yes" to attending the event were my friends that I verbally spoke to about interviewing them. It led me to start thinking about how successful facebook really is. All the people I have interviewed are people that I spoke to in person or people who I have signaled out and emailed. I haven't had one person from my facebook event actually try and get in touch with me. So although facebook allows you to send out mass information to as many people as you know, I think I sent it out to about 250 people, the success rate of hearing from those people is very low.

What is also interesting to take note of is the fact that the majority of the six people who responded yes to attending are close friends that I see almost daily. When I was doing some reading the other day, the article questioned "what the meaning of 'friends' [are] in these environments" and I am starting to wonder the same thing (533). According to facebook I have 933 friends, but really when I think about it I talk to about 20 of them on facebook. The reason I believe I have so many friends that I don't talk is because they are "superficial relationships" (533).

Freshman year of college I went on a friending spree (don't judge you know we all do it) and friended almost every single person I met during the first couple of months I was here. Looking back on it I am not exactly sure why I did it, I would argue that it allowed me to get in contact with these people and try and meet up with them after just meeting them but I'm going to be honest, that never actually happened. The reason I believe I went on such a friending craze is because the number of friends one has on facebook does affect judgments. For example, "popularity, pleasantness, heterosexual appeal, and confidence of the profile owner were greater when there was a high number of friends on an individual's profile than when the lower coefficients were displayed" (536). We know that to have a lot of friends on facebook it will make us seem more popular and therefore we will be more liked.

When you first meet someone what is one of the first things you do? Most likely you go on facebook and try to see their pictures and who they are friends with. If you have mutual friends you will probably be more inclined to want to friend them. This raises questions on what is means to be a facebook friend? And there isn't much of an answer except that "on Facebook, the meaning of friend does not always have traditional connotations" (537). In some cases "other literature has speculated that the meaning of friends changes in social networking sites, particularly as numbers grow higher" (537). So does the more friends you have on facebook mean the less intense those friendships actually are? I think so, because what it comes down to is that I don't talk to all 933 of my facebook friends.

This isn't to say that having friends on facebook is a bad thing. Actually it can be very helpful at times, for example "Donath and boyd (2004) argue that online social networking systems can help individuals to maintain a larger number of close ties than people can typically maintain without such technology, as the systems allow people to check one another's sites for updates, reflect new activities, as well as to facilitate brief verbal exchanges through asynchronous wall postings" (537). For example a lot of friends I had in elementary school I have been able to get back in touch with and re-form those close ties I had with them when I was younger.  Over the summer my best friend from kindergarten and I actually were able to get together for dinner through facebook and ever since then we have been meeting up and staying in touch, it has been like no time has passed.

So I think the main thing to take away from this post and the idea about friendship is that what "is labeled 'friend' on Facebook often does not correspond to the same label offline" (537).
 
Works Cited

Walther, Joseph, Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Von Der Heide, and Lindsey Langwell. "Too Much of a Good Thing? 
              The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook." Journal of 
              Computer Mediated 13 (2008) 531-549.

Production

I did a lot of talking during pre-production about what I wanted this project to be like, and now I have finally begun the actual production for this video. So far I am very excited and happy about how things are turning out. As of now I have interviewed six people, two of them were close friends that had verbally agreed to help out, one of them was a classmate who also happened to be part of the FYS where she had to unplug, the other one was a first year student who is my friends brother, and the last two were faculty members who I got in touch with through email.

I have only slightly looked over the interviews and am planning on loading them later this week onto the computer so that I can really start to analyze what people have said. Once I have done that I am planning on uploading one or two short clips of the things I have found interesting onto the blog. However, one thing that my friend Sam said that I made a mental note to go back to when filming was the way he uses facebook to represent himself. He spoke about how now that his mom is on facebook he has to be more careful about how he represents himself, and be much more aware of what he chooses to upload online.

What Sam mentioned about representing yourself made me think back to some readings I have done that talk about how social networks are used as a way to represent yourself in the most attractive way to your peers. For example, in the reading, Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook, the article mentions, "With the advent of new social technologies, users no longer have to rely on an individual's self-composed emails...to garner impressions about a subject" (531). Essentially what this is saying is that now with social networks and new forms of technology that allow us to portray more of our selves then let's say written text it allows those on the receiving end of this information to pass judgment on what they are seeing. People are starting to share their social lives online and whether you are like Sam, who feels the need to be more careful about what he is sharing, or whether you want to share everything, there is always going to be someone on the receiving end viewing this information and sometimes "the information on these sites contains information provided not only by the creator, but by the creator's friends" (532). Who is posting on our facebook walls and the amount of wall posts we get says a lot about ourselves just as much as what we reveal to people such as our "hometown, birthday, preferred activities etc" (532). Not only does the information we place on these sites say a lot about us, but "another source of information on one's profile comes from other social network members: An individual's friends can leave messages on one's profile" (533).

This quote actually reminds me of a personal anecdote that took place my junior year of high school, since it was so long ago I cannot remember the exact details, but what essentially happened was I posted a message on my friends wall. By posting on her wall instead of sending her a personal message, this made what I posted open for all of those who can view her profile to see. A few days later when I went back to her profile I noticed that what I had written on her wall had been deleted and it wasn't by me. When I asked her why she deleted it, she replied that she didn't want people to see it. "Recent research has shown that friends' wall postings also affect judgments of profile owners" and according to Walther et al. he has "found statements made by the profile owner's friends had significant impact on observers' ratings of the social attractiveness and credibility of the profile owner" which is called the Brunswick Lens Model (534). Therefore, it is obvious that my friend was embarrassed by what I said and how it reflected on her so she deleted it.

Facebook has allowed people to (again going to reference to the movie the Social Network) but it has allowed us to live our lives online, but this online life is different because we are protected by a computer screen. There is actually a spoof youtube video called, "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" and although the video is a joke it touches upon some interesting concepts. One concept in particular is when the lyrics say, "What role do you wanna play?/ I'm just a click away night or day/ And if you think I'm not the one/ Log off, log off and we'll be done." The lyrics are saying that you can hide behind this avatar you have created and whenever you want to go you can sign off, you can deal with online life whenever you want. Although, avatars usually refer to role playing games like World of Warcraft, I believe that facebook has become a place for the creation of avatars. Think about it, on facebook you have a profile picture, and majority of people put up pictures that are show them in a good light and make them attractive to their friends.



According to the Social Information Processing Theory, which "suggests that people avail themselves of whatever information is available within a CMC environment with which to form impressions, despite the absence of the nonverbal cues that typically drive impressions in offline communications" (533). Meaning, people are still finding a way to have the same sort of social interaction they would have face-to-face but online. They are still making impressions of their friends and there is still a "sociometric popularity-that which responds to the number of friends or connections one has, which may be reflected in the coefficient of friends displayed on the profiles of Facebook users" (535). To garner these friends, people create profiles that make them attractive because "previous research suggests that people simply prefer to associate with those whom they find physically attractive" (535). Therefore with one or two clicks of the mouse you can create a profile that makes yourself attractive to others, and "given that there appears to be reciprocal relationship between popularity and attraction (and other evaluations), it seems plausible an individual who appears to be popular on Facebook (i.e. has lots of friends) is likely to be seen as more physically attractive" (536).

Therefore, as my friend did to me and as Sam has started to do with his Mom they are altering there profile, whether deleting unwanted comments from their profile or de-tagging photos that show them in a poor light, people are constructing images that will make them most attractive to their peers.

Works Cited

Walther, Joseph, Stephanie Tom Tong, Brandon Von Der Heide, and Lindsey Langwell. "Too Much of a Good Thing? 
              The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook." Journal of 
              Computer Mediated 13 (2008) 531-549. 

Reflection

So today I set up quite a few interviews, and one in particular was with my athletic trainer Alana Alpert. I wanted to reflect on this interview specifically because I had completed the interview and was packing up my equipment, and as I was doing this Alana and I continued to talk about different technologies. During this conversation Alana started to say some really interesting things about technology and how it is used on campus and I noticed she had gotten really animated and into the conversation. Therefore I was really upset that I had turned the camera off and wasn't able to record what she was saying. I had a decision to make, it was between shrugging off this missed footage, which is what Barry Hampe suggests in his book, Making Documentary Films and Videos. Hampe states, "If you don't have the footage, then as far as this film is concerned, it never happened. Don't worry about it. Work with the visual evidence you do have" (67). However, my second choice was to just ask Alana to say what she had said over again. This is something that Hampe also mentions in his book. He actually describes one moment in particular where he was interviewing a police captain for a documentary he was making and because of technical issues he asks the captain to repeat what he is saying multiple times. However, in this example Hampe suggests not to do this because when the captain had to repeat himself multiple times he "had been reduced to a boring bureaucrat, spouting officialese and qualifying every statement" (63). Although, this is a negative quality that occurs when you ask the person you are interviewing to repeat themselves I decide to go with my gut and asked Alana to repeat what she had been saying for the camera. I decided to go in this direction because this is my senior project and I didn't want to take any chances in missing out on some quality information that could be useful.

However, it is only now that I am starting to regret my decision but only slightly, I guess I am regretting it enough to write about it, but I think I made the right decision. I guess what it comes down to is I am a little disappointed with myself because I was really hoping I could go through shooting without having to ask people to repeat themselves. I didn't want what happened to the captain in Hampe's story to happen to me and therefore I told myself I wouldn't make the same mistakes he made. However, to cut myself some slack I don't think it hurt when I asked Alana to repeat the same thing she had said, her personality hadn't changed from the rest of the interview and she was able to pretty much repeat everything I had found interesting.

My interaction with Alana was also interesting because I definitely noticed a difference in her behavior off and on camera. When the camera was off and we continued to talk about the subject she was much more energetic and passionate, however when the camera was on it wasn't like she was less energetic but she definitely seemed less passionate. Hampe also warns against this saying, "you can't just plop people down in front of a camera, tell them to be themselves, and start recording. What you'll get is people trying to remember how they act when they are being themselves" (64). Although I think Alana was acting like herself she definitely changed in front of the camera, which I think is going to be inevitable. I think some people feel like they have to act a certain way when the cameras are on, and in this case Alana acted more professional. I haven't noticed this with everyone I have interviewed, most of the people I am friends with act like themselves because they are comfortable, I think it all depends, it is just an interesting thing to take note of.

Since we are on the subject of interviews I also want to make note a new interview possibility. During Alana's interview she mentions the social network Twitter and it reminded me of the St. Lawrence twitter account, which is actually operated by someone in admissions, Tim Akers. Tim is also responsible for SLU's other forms of media like their facebook pages and even a tumblr account. Therefore, I am going to send Tim an email and see if he would be willing to talk to me about his job and how SLU is involved with these social networks and why they chose to use these different mediums.

Works Cited

Hampe, Barry. Making Documentary Films and Videos. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007.