My dad is a typical dad. He enjoys rugby, family barbeques, and mowing the lawn on a Sunday morning. He also has not yet subscribed to social media of any kind.
One thing he always asks is “If I get Facebook, can I just be anonymous? I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. I don’t want to post anything. I just want to see what you kids are doing.”
For the majority of my late teens I had this same mentality. I didn’t particularly want people to see what I was doing, creating, believing or feeling. However, my perception of being in a media space has reformed noticeably over the past two years, with the requirement of tweeting, blogging and posting in a very public view. Media spaces are “electronic settings in which groups of people can work together, even when they are not present in the same place and time”. The key element: interaction. What has changed now is that we are constantly informed, aware and updated of what our companions are doing, and this is only made possible by the contributions and exchanges of individuals in an online space.
I must admit, it occasionally makes me uncomfortable that I know exactly where people are according to the Snap Map, what someone had for lunch according to Instagram or an individual’s strong political opinion according to Twitter. But whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s a real thing- a thing which is ever evolving, extremely important and impossible to avoid. Sorry Dad.
Featured Image: “Selfie” by kaatverschuere, licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Lazy Susan. 