#siapera

Social media has enabled, even encouraged smartphone users to be “always on” (boyd, 2012), which has fundamentally altered the way we relate to one another, how we use language, as well as our basic sense of selves. Many people (myself included) experience nomophobia, the “fear of being unable to use one’s mobile device” (Arpaci et al. 2017). The definition goes on to include the “affordances these devices provide”, suggesting that it’s not just not having a phone that’s responsible for the anxiety we experience; it’s what we can do with the phone that we don’t like being without. Personally, I like to be able to find answers to questions I have as soon as I wonder about something. I’ll forget the answer almost immediately, but it’s nice to have the knowledge for 10 minutes or so!

Sherry Turkle speaks about receiving a text as like “getting a hug”. I absolutely agree with her. When I moved to the country, being connected to my friends back in Melbourne via SMS and social media was like carrying them around in my pocket. I could include them in my life through Snapchat, see what they were up to on Instagram. Turkle then goes on to make the point that we want control over how we appear through texting and posting, which struck a chord with me. The amount of time I’ve wasted poring over a post, both for uni discussions and social media engagement, is ridiculous. I’ll overthink what I’m saying and how it’s written, trying to perfect it. And I often bail on posting at all because I can’t get it right. In a classroom or a real life social situation, I’d just make a fool of myself and move on. Turkle goes on to point out that “we use conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves”. Applying this to my situation is a perfect way to demonstrate that my social skills won’t get any better without practicing.

Siapera’s statements about individuals being able to join a virtual community “to meet like-minded people” rings very true. In my case it was like-gutted people, because when I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease, it was a Facebook group where I learned everything: available resources, not-so-well-known unsafe food practices to look out for, safe places to eat, recipes for foods I can’t eat anymore, and short and long term side effects. Then there was the support on the page – people who knew what I was going through were (and are) so supportive and understanding. Therefore, I cannot agree with Putnam’s statement of technology, that “the result (of technology) is a society that is not much more than a collection of individuals, meeting and socializing occasionally… Who do not share any strong bonds or any sense of common purpose.” My argument would be that strong bonds can be found anywhere in society, whether a common purpose is present or not. We’re social animals, after all.

Comments welcome! Thanks for reading :)

REFERENCES

Arpaci, I, Baloğlu, M, Özteke Kozan, H & Kesici, Ş 2017, "Individual Differences in the Relationship Between Attachment and Nomophobia Among College Students: The Mediating Role of Mindfulness", Journal of Medical Internet Research, vol. 19, no. 12, p. e404, viewed 3 December, 2018, <https://www.jmir.org/2017/12/e404/#ref28>.

boyd, D 2012, 'Participating in the always-on lifestyle', in M Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader, NYU Press, pp. 71-76.

Siapera, E 2012, 'Socialities and Social Media', in Understanding New Media, Sage, London, pp. 191-208.

While I’m writing this blog, I am also simultaneously chatting to a friend on Facebook messenger, and occasionally glancing down to scroll through my Instagram feed on my iPhone. I have just finished work for the day and so am ‘catching up’ on my social media. It’s potentially a negative thing, but very real – I am totally entrenched in the digital communities that I am a part of. I have spent most of my teenage and adult life in the throes of the ‘always-on’ lifestyle, as Boyd (2012) describes, and I honestly don’t find it to be a taxing or negative thing, yet.

Digital communities are the fastest growing of any community type around the world (Kemp, 2018), and have both positive and negative connotations for how we relate to those around us. I was actually shocked to read that if it were a country, Facebook would have the 4th biggest population in the world. As if that isn’t mind blowing enough, lets add in that 216,000 photos are published to Instagram every minute, Snapchat users watch 6 billion videos a day, and it only took 3 years, 2 months and 1 day to go from the first Tweet to the billionth.

Siapera, 2012, was right on the money when he said

               'While these [statistics] are very suggestive of the hold social media have on people, what do we actually know about the impact and more broadly about the mediating role of social media?'

To me, this touches on the ability of social media to bring people together. It gives unlikely friends a meeting place, allows us to categorise each other by our ‘likes’ or the pages we choose to follow. For example, I have met many like minded people on the ‘Newcastle Dog Rescue Volunteer’s Group’, a page I was added to after signing up to work for this cause. The people I have connected with in this group are old and young, women and men, from vastly different cultures and backgrounds, but have a united cause. I am not saying these connections are impossible without social media, but its mediating qualities are definitely real and important when it comes to broadening my circle and opening my eyes to the people on these platforms, rather than the platforms themselves.

Social media definitely has the potential to redefine our ‘friends’, but the demonisation of that process is something I find to be a little troubling. If we start to fear or belittle these online connections, we place ourselves in danger of moving backwards as a society (Elliott, 2017). Elliot’s blog on this topic is well worth a read –

https://www.socialwetalk.com/blog/the-demonisation-of-social-media

Granted, we have to be careful about why and with who we connect with on different platforms and acknowledge that these communities are not the beginning and end of our lives; however, I think seeing our digital communities in a positive way is vital for our continued healthy use of social media and online networks.

 References

Boyd, D 2012, 'Participating in the always-on lifestyle', in M Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader, NYU Press, pp. 71-76.

Elliott, B 2017, ‘The demonisation of social media’, Social We Talk?, 7th June, viewed 10th December 2018,

Kemp, S 2018, ‘Digital In 2018: World’s Internet Users Pass The 4 Billion Mark’, We Are Social, 30th January, viewed 10th December 2018,

David Christian (2011) reveals a stage in history when our ancestors began recording information. Language is the reason humans are so dominant, learning collectively and eventually becoming globally connected. It was just the other evening my wife sent me a message through social media, from the next room, asking me to make hot chocolate (the beverage not the band). Thirty minutes later it was happy wife, happy life and a picture of my effort had received 8 likes on Facebook- some coming from around the World.

We’ve come a long way.

Socialities and Social Media by Eugenia Siapera (2012, pp.192-194) discusses the adaption to new media thanks to technological advances. It discusses whether digital communities contribute to social capital. I admit, the concept of social capital has absorbed me. I live in a town which has changed from a rural community to a town surrounded by mining. Most obvious is the disappearance of reciprocity and general well being talked about when discussing a healthy, rural town. The OECD (2009, p.102) goes into great depth to analyse social capital and describes it as the links, shared values and understandings enabling individuals and groups to trust and work together. It also mentions Robert Putnam’s 1995 book, Bowling Alone.

Putnam’s concerns were that more people were bowling in the United States, but less in leagues where they worked as a team and had a chance to build trust. People weren’t engaging anymore, just existing around each other while they go about their day to day business. Alone together in a world where social capital was disappearing. Technology played a key role in Putnam’s theory, as he felt it was television causing the void at the time. Siapera also references Putnam’s research, describing loss of community (2012, pp.195-196) and the fact that perhaps technology would continue to erode social capital now that we seem to spend even more time in front of even more screens. A person might have a thousand friends on Facebook, but do they really ever form a social bond with them? 

This concern is felt by Putnam. In an interview, (2016) he explains one of his seminars was a beta test for Facebook. He describes the good and bad of that platform and suggests that face to face and digital worlds do have a place, but there needs to be a tempering in the same way you might make an alloy.

What do you think of society in the digital age?

Thanks for reading. To contribute, hit reply or like or maybe share to pass my thoughts on to your network.

It seems social media can be both a positive and negative. Siapera (2012, p. 196) explains new media encourages the creation of communities and these tend to be closed groups of like-minded people.

From my experiences social media allows me to join closed Facebook groups about niche interests I have such as the television show Survivor and true crime where I’m able to communicate and connect with others on the same wave length. Recently I saw a Survivor trivia event pop up onto a fan group I’m apart of on Facebook that was happening where I live. Social media allowed this event to be shared with people who want to know and through this I was able to meet face to face and share stories with people with the same interest as me. The internet is amazingly diverse and like me, according to Siapera (2012 p.196), users tend to stick to the places they are likely to meet others like them. While using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram you are able to choose what you want to see with some users rarely venturing out of the confines of their in-group. While I’m on Facebook I use it to follow news sites from all over the world, this allows me to keep up to date with the vast diversity of this world.

Social media is also an easy way to keep in contact with friends and family, especially the ones who live interstate or overseas. The fact that communication is so vast and portable is an important element to new media. Siapera (2012, p. 199) asserts that the significance of locality is lessening and the element of portability is amplifying. We are able to take our media all over the world to connect with new friends or keep in contact with old ones. Social media is real time communication that is cheaper and easier than a phone call. When I spent my gab year in Europe Facebook was my main form of communication. With the distance it was important for me to check in with Mum and Dad, and keep in contact with the close relationships I had. So Facebook video chat and group chats became my best friend.  

Although social media is used in a positive way and is so useful, it can also be used negatively. Siapera (2012, p.195) describes how new technologies use up our time and stop us from creating meaningful social relationships with others. Siapera (2012, p. 195) talks about the ‘virtual reality helmet’ which refers to people walking the streets wearing headphones, fully immersed in themselves and not what’s going on around them. Are we isolating ourselves?

 References

Many of you may not remember life before social media, but I can. Recently, I found my teenage address book (decades ago!) where I had recorded the contact details for my friends and family: there were 35 entries. Social media researcher Eugenia Siapera (2012) suggests that the average number of ‘friends’ Facebook users have is 120. Personally, my Facebook ‘friend’ count is 249, a modest number considering my young-adult children average around a thousand. In reality it is inconceivable that they could maintain personal contact with a thousand friends. Even with the disparity between our ‘friend’ numbers, I only maintain direct contact with around a quarter (or less) of my online contacts. Though, this does not suggest that my kids nor I receive none or little value from acquaintances or friends we may have never met and may not directly interact with.

image sourced: BBC 

As demonstrated in the above statistics, the advent of the social media has changed the way in which society now interacts with one another. Our sociality has now extended from within the previous geographic confines that influenced Ferdinand Tönnies’ theory of community and society (Siapera 2012). Such a theory suggests that people bound together by natural will and participate by choice form a community. In today’s society social media has afforded a new kind of community. An example of community in the digital era would be our online connection with close friends and family but also our membership in an online community group such as “St Kilda Mums”  of which I am subscribed via Facebook.

Conversely, Tönnies suggests that a “‘society’ is formed on the basis of rational will, and membership takes the form of an instrumental association, that leads to certain goals” (Siapera 2012). If we were to apply this form of society to a digital one, we may consider the advent of platforms such as LinkedIn and how we use Facebook or Twitter for opportunity. Of course such theories predate the information age and we must now consider how many of our associations online bridge both community and society.

Referring back to my example of St Kilda Mum’s which now operates across several social media platforms: clearly we see how an organisation reflects back to Tönnies’ concept of 'community' (Siapera, p 192), though I would suggest that in its development and with the aid of social media it has also had to operate within the structure of Tönnies’ 'society' (Sapeira p 192). That is, by seeking the help of individuals who would form a network, though this is not a negative as it has essentially increased what Putman describes as ''social capital' (Sapiera, p 195).  To extend both its society and community a group must often develop a symbiotic relationship between its physical and virtual communities.

Applying this theory to how I personally operate within my own digital network, I can now state that I too operate within both forms of community and society. My network consists of family and close friends, acquaintances, people I have never met (though I try to avoid such), community groups, news networks and many more. Many afford a genuine connection and offer a shared friendship; the most obvious benefit is the increase of social capital. Robert Putman, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University (2000) who coined the phrase, writes “the central premise of social capital is that social networks have value’. To consider this in today’s society, I imagine it would be a rare to find a digital citizen who had not received the benefits from their online connection.” 

Finally, in the video below, Jan Rezab eloquently says in his TEDx talk that ‘social media is not about Facebook, Twitter or the platforms, rather social media is the people on these platforms’ (2014). So, to all of my ‘friends’ both known and unknown: thanks for allowing me to share in both your society and community.  

References:

BBC, 2016, ‘Facebook Friends Gif by BBC Brit’ GiF by BBC, viewed 14 April 2018, <https://gph.is/23xAkhn>.

Putman, Social Capital Primer, RobertDPutman.com, viewed 14 April 2018, <http://robertdputnam.com/bowling-alone/social-capital-primer/>.

Siapera, E 2012, 'Socialities and Social Media', in Understanding New Media, Sage, London, pp. 191-208.