This week’s discussion is started off from my reading of Instant Identity by Shayla Stern and right off the bat on the first page of chapter one it was said that the “IM is more than just a technology. It can be a driving force in their private and public lives, particularly for adolescents who use it.” I realize that the way IM’s are used has changed over the decades somewhat. Now instant messaging is not only used on programs like AOL or yahoo but on social networking sites like facebook. In addition, the majority of our society now utilizes texting, which can still be used as a forum to receive an instantaneous message from someone. Now that I am older, I don’t use IM on the computer as much as I did in my high school days, I didn’t even have internet in my house until I was 15 (11 years ago…). The simple matter of not being able to log on and “communicate” through IM can be the determining factor in your social status at school in most cases. For example, if young people are not apart of the population that can receive the latest news and is “instantly” alerted about something or from someone they are automatically at a disadvantage. A topic that I thought was interesting was the concept of “windowing”(Pg.8) a widely cited metaphor designed to describe a person who “distributes” himself or herself into multiple online conversations and acts differently among the conversations, taking on different roles all at the same time.” So not only are they busy thinking up how they want to perceive themselves to others but they can multi-task while doing it by changing their tones and general demeanor in several different conversations.
As I continued the readings for this week I saw this quote: (Pg.8) “Scholars have found that rather than actually pretending to be someone else, the only place where some adolescents may feel comfortable expressing what they feel to be their “true” identity is in fact online.” This can be a scary thought, does this mean the youthful generations coming into adulthood do not adequately know how properly communicate their thoughts in a personable face-to-face conversation? Even if we are not quite to that extreme of a point, should be we looking at these IM conversations as something that is consistently taking away from the spoken word? How will young people know how to properly express their feelings to one another? It is easy to tell someone you have a crush on them, tell someone off, tell someone your hurt by something they did, tell someone a number of things from the comforts of your home and a screen in front of you and not necessarily be as vulnerable as you would be in a face-to-face conversation. This can come across as giving young people an edge to speaking their minds but in reality this lack of face-to-face communication can serve as a big drawback.
The unanswered question still remains, are these “instant identities” a positive or negative thing for our society and our future? As you have heard me say, I am a true believer in the principal “everything in moderation”. Therefore do I think we should yank our young people and young girls off of the Internet? No, and in fact that seems like a nearly impossible task. However, I do believe that we should be activity speaking to young girls about the dangers of creating these instant identities and the dangers of putting too much information out there. While we promote these words of caution I believe it is vital to also foster healthy habits of good LIVE communication. Girls should be able to discuss, with words that roll out of their own mouths, how they feel and what they are going through. The barrier of a computer screen should not protect them. When too much is left in the hands of technology things can easily and quickly go awry.
-Melissa King
Your quote "'Scholars have found that rather than actually pretending to be someone else, the only place where some adolescents may feel comfortable expressing what they feel to be their “true” identity is in fact online.' This can be a scary thought, does this mean the youthful generations coming into adulthood do not adequately know how properly communicate their thoughts in a personable face-to-face conversation?" I do not think it is taking away fom tier ability to verbally express themselves in person to others as more lik etey can express themselves wholeheartedly online and not face ridicule. I believe that previous generation that did not have tings such as IMing were much less likely to wholeheatedly express themselves at all, personally or otherwise. I think this is why the older generations are much more conservative and close-minded to ideas such as changing gender roles or the idea of gender in general, such as the LGBT community does. I think the adolescents are just more comfortable expressing themselves without having to see a look of disgust or disapproval on someone's face, but at least they are still expressing themselves publicly.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this post and I think you bring up some great points. One thing I like that you touched on was that the computer screen acts as a sort of shield that allows people to say whatever they want to say, something they might not otherwise say in person. I agree that the fact that there is this ease of using this as a protective barrier might be breaking down our social ability to interact and speak our minds in a face to face situation and that could be truly damaging to people within our society. People won't always have a screen to hide behind and if they can only stand up and speak their minds when there is a computer screen there to protect them, then how should they expect to make any changes in our society, to see any progression of equality, to have women's voices be HEARD and not just "heard" via text? I think that although I love certain aspects of technology and think that it is in fact a FANTASTIC tool, that noting is comparable to a face to face conversation and interaction.
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