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.