What Do Metrics Want? How Quantification Prescribes Social Interaction on Facebook
“The audit employs quantification as its way of understanding progress and tracking compliance.”
“That prescription starts with the transformation of the human need for personal worth, within the confines of capitalism, into an insatiable “desire for more.” Audit culture and business ontology enculturate a reliance on quantification to evaluate whether that desire has been fulfilled.”
The Facebook Demetricator also questions the fact that we have to respond to information. Yes the physical numbers bring the idea that more is more. But, if the software makes all comments/likes/actions disappear, then theres no pressure to respond/engage/add with the material at all. In this sense, we take information in a new way, and aren’t expected to provide anything in return, which can be refreshing.
Social performance is valued by metrics.
What about Finstas? Finstas are kind of an example of how social platforms limit human emotion. Finstas come about as a desire to express negative/private vulnerability to a small selected public. The accounts are made private, and they rarely exceed more than 30 followers. Not only does this reflect a comparison of intimate vs public “friendships”, but it shows an effort to express a person’s more gloomy experiences, rather than a flashy public persona. Instagram is heavily image based, but finstas carry heavy captions. However, the audience, the followers who follow the finsta, often come into uncertainty. How should they respond to flows of emotional venting? Should they like it? Comment? Suddenly, they aren’t sure what to do because Instagram limits their reactions (like Sim characters??). To make matters worse, the people who post these things often don’t get lots of likes/comments. Following along with our value for metric validation, this can hurt our emotional state even more.
How do we think this effects the kids who are born and raised alongside this technology? Is there a different result in real life communication? If we were to live so heavily dependent on social media, will that weaken our skills of human compassion and agency (that lack from software)?
Nathan Jurgenson – The Social Photo – (book, pp. 1-15)
truth/fact = nolstagia/history = vintage/faux aesthetic
Damon Winter’s Afghanistan Photo: creates an archaic narrative with the black and white vintage aesthetic, regressing war to history rather than present day. Vintage aesthetics warp time and dislocates the event from the present day. This can be dangerous for the conflicts/communities in danger presently, because the lack of urgency that the photos evoke. Is the aesthetic worth it if it means events are dislocated from their reality?
social photography=domestic “images” vs photography=artsy professional
I feel like this statement speaks to the hierarchy that museums carry over their versions of “art”. I disagree that “real photography” has “formally artistic” patterns and photography that represents more candid personal material are only “images”. Why can’t informal imagery not be considered photography? Why does art have to only hold authenticity within gallery walls?
“For my purposes here, what fundamentally
makes a photo a social photo is the degree to which its existence as a standalone media object is subordinate to its existence as a unit of
communication.” Aren’t all photos mainly communicative though? Why is the author stressing such a hard divide between traditional art photography and a now, much more accessible versatile version of photography? Both can be viewed for aesthetic/skill AND for social context/narrative.
“Without an audience for every snap, photography before social media
had to work much harder for attention; it had to be important or special or worthy to justify being seen.” Yes and no. Yes, social platforms can bring an equal playing field for photography being seen. But no, it’s not much different from the past. Having lots of Instagram followers creates the an algorithm that promotes my post to the public. Having high reputation and privilege in real life also sets your work apart even prior social photography. What do you guys think?
Wearables and how we measure ourselves through social media | Jill Walker Rettberg | TEDxBergen
baby monitor=virtual nurturer/caretaker
We’re building technology to the point where it engulfs our lives. Fitbits, baby monitors, life analysis. They all our passing a line of aiding us to taking over our actions completely. To think that a baby monitor is held responsible (to some degree) for a baby’s nutrition and health empowers technology to be the caretaker. It shifts the nurturing aspect of a parent/guardian to technology. I’m kind of against this because of how much authority metrics our held to. Will we believe quantifiable data from a computer more than a babysitter? How does that change our relationship and trust with one another? How are we taking data as “pure truth”? Dataism: Ideology that data is truth. What does that leave the guardian/parent left to do as a guardian/parent?
Measuring through a phone relies on technology to be apart of your body at all times. There lacks a separation of identity between the person and the phone if we hold all the phone’s data to be ours.