Nathan Jurgenson – The Social Photo
With the rise of new media platforms that allow the vast majority of people to socially interact with each other in a new format comes to this social change that impacts the way we “socially” view the world. Jurgenson proposes that in order to understand this change in the interaction we must look into the history of social media and its relationship with social photography. He goes into detail the history of photography itself and how the definition of what constitutes photography has now been a subject of debate due to the accessible and popular social media applications like Instagram that has somewhat redefined the act of documentation. Now, people all over the world can photograph and document every aspect of their lives, which is a drastic change to how photography had been limited to the “professionals” in the past. Jurgenson also brings up this aspect of the need to create an illusion of decay and age through the use of filters on Instagram that highlights people’s desire for authenticity.
To what extent can something that is posted on Instagram truly be considered as “photography” in terms of some expert standards? What are the requirements of that? Can ANYONE be a photographer?
Jill Walker Rettberg – What can’t we measure in a quantified world?
This talk highlights the interesting aspect of quantifying data that persists in our society today. About anything and everything that you can imagine can be quantified into numbers that in turn can impact the way we go about life. An example that Rettberg had used is the data collected from her Fitbit that displays the number of steps she had taken in a day, and how when she noticed that one day she wasn’t walking the recommended amount of steps on a certain day, she actively changed her routine to make herself move more which in turn gave her more steps. This is just an example of how numbers can make us decide to change our lives. She brings up multiple examples of quantifying data devices that are created or are in the process of creation that is meant to add convenience to ourselves.
Do you think that in the future, such devices would be so integrated into our daily lives that it would be the new normal to worry about our “life stats” every minute?
Ben Grosser – What do Metrics Want? How Quantification Prescribes Social Interaction on FB
Numbers and metrics have now become an important aspect of our lives due to different social media that utilizes those quantifiers in likes, shares, and comments like Facebook. In this article, Grosser goes into detail the strong desire for more that persists in the users of Facebook that ties together with the capitalistic tendencies of the society that dwells in it. More likes and shares equal to more self-worth, exchange value = personal worth. He then details the browser extension he had created to combat this persistence and bring to light our dependencies on the numbers through his creation, the Facebook Demetricator.
Do you think that society will ever move past the desire and need for more in terms of depending on the metrics that persists through social media?