Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Netflix, Youtube, Apple TV, Eurostar App, Wattpad, Apple Music, Duolingo, Spotify, Bookly, Iphone, Ipad, Kindle, Discord, Whatsapp, Google maps, Linkedin….
The list of digital mediums that I could study and observe stretches on and on, and in making this list I was faced with two realizations to explore. First, the spread of my information, creation of random accounts, and usage of such a multitude of platforms in the digital space is so expansive, and leads to serious reconsideration of what is necessary in this sphere. Secondly, this idea of what is necessary in era of digital medias is very performatively impacted.
My Information Web
The fact that I could brainstorm so many mediums in which I have some type of account, connection, data sharing, messages, or photos stands as a testament to the prevalence of digital medias in our time. Without question I have amassed a large number of platforms where I intend in some small way, maybe even subconsciously, to leave my impact. Whether that be posting, or just curating the perfect algorithm to my preferences, some part of me must want to interact with each of these platforms differently.
I’m certain I am in no way alone in this way of digital life, however after reading Christine Finn’s writings on the Silicon Valley, I was forced to grapple with the idea that I was ‘born digital.’
“Even within the expanding parameters of contemporary archaeology, the material culture of digital technologies divides practitioners between those who have experienced the technological change first-hand and those who see it only historically—those who were ‘born digital’. The artefacts that the older of us learned about as cutting-edge innovations, breathlessly reported in specialist media such as Wired magazine, or saw unveiled at consumer tech shows, are history—quite literally—to an increasing number of students, who directly experience only the rapid accumulation of upgrades, apps, and version releases laid down as different kinds of archaeological stratigraphies.”1
The world that we are living in now is vastly different, and new, leading there to also be a lack of understanding of the possible consequences of the way that we are interacting with digital media today. It is all unknown, which provides a comfort to some people, as they will discover along with the rest of the world what is to become of the digital world, and a terror to other people as there is no way to predict the outcome.
Masks of myself
All things considered, those of us ‘born digital’ have learned how to navigate this complex online maze of information, and in fact devote a lot of time to curating our online worlds and personas and what we present to the world. When Erving Goffman wrote about the ‘Presentation of Self In Everyday Life,’ he was dealing with the non-digital world, and spoke about how in a first impression interaction, people work to “glean clues from his conduct and appearance which allow them to apply their previous experience with individuals roughly similar to the one before them or, more important, to apply untested stereotypes to him. “2
While I agree completely with the curiosity that Goffman describes, I think a new layer is added in the digital world as background ‘research’ on people can be conducted before or directly after a first encounter, which allows the presenter to further attempt to curate their ideal first impression.
“Regardless of the particular objective
which the individual has in mind and of his motive for having this objective, it will be in his
interests to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him.”3
Connecting back to the digital, people have certain accounts and profiles in order to promote themselves in different ways. These almost become different masks that we can wear and switch between who we want to present to. While on my Linkedin I appear professional and accomplished in my university life, on my finsta account I instead present myself as a chaotic teenager navigating life abroad, and even on Facebook I present myself as a slightly more put together version of that teenage student, to cater to the friends of my parents who follow me.
This all flips the question of where a digital media is in the world on its head, and instead ask where are we within the digital media world, and how many different version of ourselves exist there. Why and how did so many accounts for me get made, and what is the reasoning or ‘performance’ behind each of them?
- Christine Finn, “Silicon Valley,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, ed. Paul Graves-Brown (Oxford University press, 2013), 657. ↩︎
- Erving Goffman, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,” in The Preservation of Self in Everyday Life (The Overlook Press, 1959), 17. ↩︎
- Erving Goffman, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,” in The Preservation of Self in Everyday Life (The Overlook Press, 1959), 18. ↩︎
Sources:
Finn, Christine. “Silicon Valley,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, edited by Paul Graves-Brown, 657-670. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Goffman, Erving. “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,” in The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, 17-25. The Overlook Press, 1959.
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