One of the readings we had this week was by Danah Boyd. A question that was poised is as follows: “Should we build technology to promote what we believe should be people’s priorities? Or should we build technology that supports the priorities that most people have?”

I thought this was a very interesting question because I feel like it succinctly describes two different (maybe even polarizing) opinions on what technology’s purpose is in society. I was reminded of two separate examples – first, the fact that media in America has always been a business can be clearly seen today as we dominate the film and entertainment industry. Other countries, like France, whose media serves a more public purpose, continue to focus on documentaries and round-table discussions that air throughout the day. However, I also thought about how technology should be enhancing human intelligence, which to me sounds more like a public, altruistic objective than aiming to be a business and making profit.

The more I think about technology’s role in society today, the more I believe that the latter is true. I wonder if it’s because we’re in an environment that constantly praises the startup culture, but I find myself associating startup ideas as ideas that make our lives easier (or even ideas that make a lot of money), and not necessarily morally “better.” Recent apps like Snapchat or Tinder only make it more convenient for us to communicate, though those platforms’ objectives might not come from a sincerely altruistic place. In conclusion, I feel like the technology culture today has definitely evolved to become a business, and companies strive to make the most profit no matter what the cause.

I might be jumping the gun here because we haven’t talked about collective action yet, but I wanted to jot down a couple of thoughts that have solidified over the course of the last week.

Yik Yak this week has been ridiculously active with pretty polarizing political statements, many of which were surrounding the recent shutdown of the San Mateo bridge. The hashtag #stanford68, or I guess now #stanford69, was also created in response to this event. Opinions about the protest that shut down the bridge were already pretty split when the event first happened, but a few days ago the student email newsletter The Fountain Hopper (commonly known as FoHo) released new information regarding the shutdown. In particular, FoHo mentioned that there was a 3-year-old girl who had to be transported to the ER for a medical emergency and faces possible brain damage because she was stuck in the car that was stuck on the bridge during the shutdown.

I’m not here to discuss politics (partly because I am also conflicted, but more importantly because this is not what I’m writing about). I was glued to Yik Yak when news about this went out, and was surprised to see how many negative comments there were about the protestors. I tried looking for countering statements, but there were only a couple at best. It really seemed like the Stanford community hated the protests and the Stanford student protestors.

I was reminded of the “vocal minority,” and wonder how that plays a role now in social media. With Yik Yak, it’s so easy to erase someone’s comment – as long as 5 people downvote the statement (and it can be for any reason), it’ll be deleted from the newsfeed. I wonder how public opinion can become biased through outlets like Yik Yak – what if seeing so many criticisms on Yik Yak raise the confidence of those are against the protest, but in reality the majority of the student population is one that is neutral, apathetic, still trying to understand? Or on the other side, what if I am neutral and want to find out more about this issue? If I go onto Yik Yak, I’m going to assume that most of the student population was against this event, which might sway me in that same direction. Yik Yak can definitely be humorous (and I think it should be), but this was the first time I saw how quickly social media shifted focus to bring a specific event to the spotlight. I was always aware that our traditional platforms of media are biased, but I didn’t realize how quickly social media platforms can become as well.

Yeah, I definitely had a period of time after sophomore year where I didn’t think I could continue with the team because I was getting frustrated with not only the internal structure of the team, but also how I felt socially tired of all the members. I then went abroad last quarter, and realized that they were like family – no matter how much they can be annoying at times, I did indeed miss the community (Alliance helped me meet people from the dance community in general, but I would love to know if there is overlap for Stanford athletics as well!).

“Look at the image of the community you drew before discussion today as a case study. From the discussion we had today, what traits do you think makes it a community? Do you think social media and modern technology could impact on how your community functions?”

For this blog prompt, I chose my hip-hop dance group on campus, Alliance. Upon creating the concept map and reflecting on both the discussion we had in class and the readings, I think that for Alliance social media can only enhance my community because of our mutual interest as a dance group.

As part of a dance group, arguably the biggest objective is to not only dance together, but to create sets for performances that pop up all throughout the school year. As a result, it’s impossible for Alliance to function completely on the Internet, unlike other interest groups like the initial chat rooms. Alliance needs real-life interaction in order to practice, go through choreography, etc.

However, social media has tremendously enhanced the relations of the group. One of the best examples I can think of is when I was abroad last quarter – when the team got new members, I was able to get to know them and their personals through social media platforms such as Facebook and a group text app called GroupMe. When I returned to campus this quarter, it was not awkward to see these members for the first time because I already felt like I knew them.

While there is a leadership hierarchy in Alliance, it is just to enforce the objective that as a team we need to create pieces for our performances. We have directors who lead artistically and logistically in order for us to achieve that goal. But I don’t think a hierarchy is completely necessary for a community: I imagine that the role of a leader can be routinely switched in between members. With that being said, I personally believe that agreement of the internal function of the group is key to maintaining the group. And as for social media, I think that for Alliance social media is very beneficial.

I think the biggest takeaway from last week’s discussion was that it’s hard to exactly pinpoint whether have social media and modern technology is a good thing, and how our future society will look with all these advancements. As a result, I believe the most fitting quote comes from Wellman himself, as he says “dense, bounded groups… coexist with loose, unbounded groups.” (Note to self: I also learned this week that there are subtle differences between a community, a network, and a third place.)

I think we can all very easily think of communities we’re part of from both categories, but upon further reflection of the blog prompt, I realize that rarely are communities cleanly split between those in reality and those that only thrive/exist online. Many of the students groups I am/was part of on campus have group texts and Facebook pages, and I think in those situations social media really does live up to the traditional objectives of technology – they enhance our community experience.

But that doesn’t mean that problems are completely absent. Because of individual differences in Internet usage and communication styles, I always found it interesting that a fellow member would be very active on our social media platforms yet completely silent in real life. I wonder if one persona is “better” than the other – is the online persona “better” because it is more active, or is the real persona “better” because it exists in real-world, real-time, face-to-face communication? Does this make me view that individual as less authentic, because he/she seems to portray a different personality through each medium? Is this inevitable?

Thanks for the article! I think we discussed a lot of similar ideas in our discussions, but I really appreciated the article mentioning Maslow’s concept of self-actualization. It was nice to have a more academic approach to explain this phenomenon than just us using anecdotal evidence and talking about ourselves.

Last week, Professor Rheingold sent me a video about cyberspace. I found this extremely insightful, and I would love to start a discussion or hear your comments about some of the points Neil Postman made about the Internet:

• “It always gives us something important, but it also takes away something important.” Postman gives the example of doing everything from home and wonders if “this doesn’t signify the end of any meaningful community life.” Or perhaps the question we should ask now is, what is community (an extremely fitting segway to next class)?
• Because you can just “turn off” a person in cyberspace, Postman worries if that will “diminish the human sense of responsibility we have,” not to mention the social skills that we would practice in real life.
• “The worst image… is people who are overloaded with information, which they don’t what to do with, have no sense of what is relevant what is irrelevant…” Is there such a thing as too much information? Postman goes as far as arguing that children are starving in Somalia not because we don’t have information, but because we have too much.
• “What is the problem to which this technology is a solution?” I now wonder if the social media platforms, especially the newer ones, we have today are not really solving a problem of communication? Are we using technology, or is technology using us?