In Nancy Baym’s Personal Connections in the Digital Age, she briefly talks about parent’s fear of losing control over raising their children. This fear, inevitable in any parenting situation, has been projected onto the new technology of today’s day and age, blaming the internet for threatening the children of today. As a result, children’s access to technology is often limited, controlled, or banned altogether. But Baym argues that “Displacing our anxieties about children’s safety onto the internet and mobile phones makes our fear more manageable, but does little to protect children, and may keep the from realizing the benefits new technologies can offer them” (32). This misguided course of action has been a parenting trend lately, and has been applied to more than just the internet. For example, there are some parents who now ban their children from attending sleepovers, on the grounds that the world is now too dangerous for them to stay one night away from home. The article from blogger Tim Challies (http://www.challies.com/articles/why-my-family-doesnt-do-sleepovers) supports this idea, saying that pedophiles and cases of child molestation are “more pervasive than ever” in our society today. This follows the classic thought process of “this thing could be dangerous, so let’s cut it out all together.” It ignores other factors, such as the fact that the internet and its instant media makes news of molestation and other extremes more visible than it was before. This way of raising children can be dangerous; how are children supposed to learn how to fend for themselves in the real world if they are not allowed to experience it? What will they do when they move out of the house? In this age of information, we need to study not just how kids react to new technology, but how parents react as well. Parents are the ones who dictate children’s access to this information, and therefore impact children’s relationships with that information (Is it a good thing? Is it the forbidden fruit? Is it dangerous? Should I rebel and access it behind my parents’ backs?). This is why methods that teach fear such as the one above should be avoided, since it either holds children back from learning how to use technology wisely or leads to rebellion and thus poor online choices. Parents must have an open and honest conversation with their children about the good and the dangers of the internet, working together on building wise and safe habits.

When I woke up this morning to write a post about the reading in relation to the movie I re-watched last night I was quite surprised to see that another classmate posted about the same film. I had thought, “oh no!, now I need to post about something else.” However, this film is just so spot on in regards to our class and our lives today that I truly believe that everyone would benefit from watching this film and that is why I chose to write about the film as well and have attached the trailer below.

I originally watched Men, Women, and Children while on a flight on New Years Eve just two weeks back and I knew I had to re-watch the film based on the discussions we have had in class and the readings this far. The reason I too chose to write about this film is because I believe it to be the most accurate visual depiction/representation of how the internet is evolving the ways in which we build relationships and communicate with others, both online and off.

Baym, in her work writes about social anxieties and states, “most anxieties around both digital media and their historical precursors stem from the fact that these media are interactive. Especially in combination with sparse social cues, interactivity raises issues about the authenticity and well-being of people, interactions, and relationships that use new media. Other anxieties arise out of the temporal structure of digital media, which seem to push us towards continuous interaction.”

I believe the above quote to really summarize this trailer and even the film as a whole. This notion of continuous interaction, in my opinion, is often the stem of this anxiety. We now have so means means of communicating, as explored in the film, from texts messages to social media websites, to blog posts like ours. This film challenged me to consider how emotion itself is affected by our continuous interaction online and how our dialogue authenticity on the web maybe more honest then our conversations face to face.

Lastly, Baym states that one reason for uncertainty in mediated environments is that, without visual and auditory social cues, people are not sure whether or not they can trust other people to be who they claim to be. This is the central problem of anonymity. However at the same time she challenges this by also adding that on a societal level, anonymity opens the possibility of liberation. As you’ll see from the trailer, the internet for some of the characters is their solace, their escape from the confines of their real life. I believe we can all relate to that.

I do hope that everyone in the course will at least watch the trailer to this film. One of the reasons being that I believe it will effect each person differently and raise questions that will be relatable in course discussions.

In Chapter 2 of “Personal Connections in the Digital Age,” Nancy K. Baym briefly mentions that resistance to new technology often comes from people most in the position to utilize it. People who value social barriers tend to resent the fact that technology can connect them to the “wrong kinds” of people. Baym uses an anecdote from the introduction of the telephone to illustrate how technology can create the potential for intrusion. The mayor of New York City began receiving phone calls from citizens excited about the unprecedented level of access to a governmental figure, although the elite perceived the attempted communication as invasive. This phenomenon is reminiscent of celebrities’ and corporations’ recent attempts to engage with social media, as Twitter campaigns and publicized Tumblr accounts often backfire in embarrassing or otherwise damaging ways.

Because public figures often do not accurately predict how users will interact with campaigns like sponsored hashtags, they are left with a public relations nightmare that can find them resenting the need for a social media presence in the first place. Earlier this year, Robin Thicke encouraged fans to submit questions using the hashtag #AskThicke, which was almost exclusively used to comment on the singer’s controversial single “Blurred Lines.” The New York Police Department was presented with a more severe problem when people used the hashtag #myNYPD to post pictures of police brutality rather than the friendly photo-ops with officers the agency had intended. Although the unintended responses to such campaigns can be enlightening, it is very possible that the campaigns’ orchestrators find themselves questioning the need to make their brand accessible to the general public in such a direct way.

Social media complicates what used to be a more simple relationship between product/personality and consumer because corporations and public figures might not like what people online have to say about them when they are forced to interact in such a direct way. While unsuccessful Twitter campaigns parallel anecdotes like that about the mayor’s phone, there is one crucial difference: the mayor of New York City was not actively engaging the public. New media is an important method of communication, but in order for it to be used successfully marketers have to think more critically about how consumers are likely to respond to obvious advertising given the often cynical nature of the internet.

The chapter about making new media make sense was extremely easy to identify with, as a person growing up in my generation. These anxieties surrounding new media seemed particularly relevant and I immediately thought of the many casual dating apps that are being created. The first of these apps was the very popular Tinder and although it is not as popular as it once was, it is still very prevalent along with other dating apps like Hinge, Happn, Jswipe, Grindr, Hitch, and plenty more. In the generation before us, Match.com, eHarmony, and other dating websites were the new frontiers in this media and were often met by anxiety and hesitation from people participating in them. Now that these sites have been around so long, we have become accustomed to them. Most people know at least one couple that is married or dating and met on one of these websites. The days a similar equivalent for our generation is Tinder. On Tinder, the user attaches a few pictures and a description of themselves. They are then presented with one picture after another of people and their description. These people then make a quick decision whether to say yes or no to the person with the swipe of a finger. If two people both say yes to each other, they are notified and have the ability to start a conversation with one another. One of the major reservations I have about tinder and the reason I didn’t download it was the speed of the decisions. The idea of basing if I want to hook up with or date a person based on a few pictures and words gives me a lot of anxiety. The speed at which things are decided and then the opportunity of conversation based on just that quick decision is so much faster than things would progress in normal life. Although most people that I know using Tinder or that used Tinder, used it just for fun, but some people actually formed real relationships. One of my friends actually dated a man she met on Tinder for over a year. Although it is uncertain if Tinder and other dating apps are here to stay, like Match.com and eHarmony, it is interesting to understand the anxiety that comes with introducing them to our society.

Nancy Baym’s discussion of technological determinism in Personal Connections in the Digital Age theorized so much of what I observe in everyday life. I am relieved that Baym can synthesize such abstract, uncharted behaviors in everyday life in a scholarly way. This gives these things real weight in the world – they aren’t something that just happens as the times change; they have real impact on every level. Anyway, the connection between technological determinism and domestication is of particular interest to me. From my perspective as a twenty one year old of the millennial generation, I believe that we are at the very top of the tipping point between non-domestication and domestication.

For example, it is not uncommon for my generation’s parents to be online – whether it’s email or full-blown Facebook addiction. I think the millennial generation parents got online around the same time as their kids, but the age at which this happened is important. For the older generation, there is a distinct moment in time when they remember getting online. For the younger generation, the memories are murkier. This is where technological determinism becomes so insanely poignant to today. We are at a point in which there are humans who do not know a world without the Internet (as an example of a new technology). These humans, however, live with other humans who do very much know the world without the Internet. It seems that there is a divide in this generation of humans that either completely detest the Internet or have embraced it wholeheartedly. Here I think it is particularly interesting to examine the fulcrum of technological determinism and the social construction of technology. As society has broken off into facets of technological use, we can observe humans’ relationship to technology.

A particular example of this tension comes up with Baym’s example of what Claude Fischer calls “impact-imprint”, an argument “in which technologies change history by transferring their ‘essential qualities to their users, imprinting themselves on users’ individual and collective psyches’” (Baym 14). I once heard that Steve Jobs took a prototype of the iPad to some rural village and asked a small child to use it; the objective was to develop the iPad to a point where it was completely intuitive to even a child who had no experience of prior technology. About a year ago, I was taking a trip with my mom and brother. We arrived at LAX to check into our flight. We approached a digital kiosk where my mom entered our names and flight number. Here, I witnessed my mom attempting to zoom into the kiosk screen with her index finger and thumb in an expanding motion as though she was on an iPad in order better see what she was doing.

This was extremely humorous to my brother and me. This is also a poignant example of the dichotomy between the theoretical framework of technological determinism and the social construction of technology. Supposedly, the iPad was created with the thought of human intuition and mind – the technology is ingrained with how a human might naturally navigate through space. However, my mom’s reflex to zoom into a screen that was certainly not designed by Apple proves Fischer’s “impact-imprint” – she was so innately used to the zoom mechanism that it became her intuitive response.

With the overall topic about the internet and its use these days, there is a lot to talk about, whether the positive outcomes or the negative. In the beginning of Baym’s reading, she talks about the dismay many have had about the advancement of technology and how it has ultimately been a disfavor for humans. In one way, it has created amazing advancements and opportunities for humans. But when will it go too far?

There have been many who have publicly warned about the negatives of the advancement of technology and one is Stephen Hawking. He has stated previously that he believes artificial intelligence could end mankind (read BBC News article here). Of course, Hawking himself relies on AI, so there is a question on when AI could go too far? To what point could it end mankind? He himself admits to his use of AI, but feels like one day it could develop quicker than human beings, and therefore “take off on its own.”

Could this be possible? In only the past 5 years technology has developed very quickly. In this NPR article, “Psst! Wearable Devices Could Make Big Tech Leaps, Into Your Ear,” the author talks about this “wearable technology” that feeds whatever information you need into your ear. The example they use is someone encountering a colleague whom you do not remember, therefore you say the colleague’s name, and the device in your ear does a really quick online search and gives you information on them.

This reminds me of a Doctor Who episode where everyone wears similar “wearable technology” and are then controlled via the technology by Cybermen. Obviously this is a sci-fi show, but the concept is similar. This was already a concept thought about in 2006, when the episode aired.

We don’t know where technology is going, but it is good to be conscious about how it is affecting our daily lives. We have become so reliant on our phones, laptops, and television, that we will keep adapting to newer technology, even if it might seem ridiculous.