Nathan Jurgenson – The Social Photo – (book, pp. 1-15)
When photography was new, it had similar social debates as smartphones and the internet. People were divided as to whether this new technology was helping or hindering us. In a way, I feel it’s a lovely mix of both.
“The center of conceptual gravity for describing how people communicate with images today should be less art historical and more social theoretical.” While professional and social photography communicate with images, it’s the social photography that is moving images toward a language of sorts, and a means to actively engage with other people. When we focus less on the aesthetics of the images and more on the meaning or the delivery, then we can start to really dive into how people communicate with images today.
Did you know that some people think in dialog, and some people don’t? I wonder if this image-based communication is a better way to include more people in the conversation. How possible is it for us to have an actual image-based language? Rather, I suppose it would be a sort of code. But then the code could actually span multiple languages, creating this connection between different cultures. Could memes and images be the “one common language” that we can use to dissolve language barriers?
Jill Walker Rettberg – “What can’t we measure in a quantified world?” (talk, 20m)
While this talk was largely about what we can and can’t measure, as well as the things we use to measure them, the thing that stuck out the most to me is how we are conditioning children to accept being monitored, tracked, and ranked based on their performance data from school. We’re constantly trying to automate our lives, but it’s at the expense of actual human interaction.
Will there become a time when we are reliant on machines and the data? Could we become so disconnected from each other and ourselves that we can’t interact without media (for example: only eating when the app says it’s an optimal time to eat, not when your body tells you to or when you choose to)? On the other hand, maybe we could become the best versions of humans that there ever could be — with the help of all of our tracking devices.
Ben Grosser – What do Metrics Want? How Quantification Prescribes Social Interaction on FB (article)
So, what do they want? They want us. They want us on their applications all of the time. They want your data. They want you to want to give more and more. Ben refers to the graphopticon, which is “a self-induced audit of metricated social performance where the many watch the metrics of the many”. Like a game, we’re rewarded for generating more content. More likes. More hearts. More followers. More, more, more.
Then comes Ben with the Demetricator, which is a browser extension which removes the metrics from Facebook. You can still navigate and use Facebook as you would without the extension, you just can’t see the how many likes or friends you have. Other numerical data is also removed, as to completely eliminate the need to drive the numbers higher. This helps to create a social environment that is more social and less dependent on numerical data.
If we know the numbers are bad for us, and we can (sometimes physically) feel the pain of numerical rejection, then why is it so hard for us to all activate the Demetricator?