23/06/2008 – 23:55
This article was officially hijacked by Paris! Booyah!
Samson:
Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism by Christine Rosen provides a rather thought provoking analogy. That self portraits of old and networking profiles found on MySpace or Facebook are virtually the same thing. You’ll have to read the whole article to figure it out so here’s the link:
http://thenewatlantis.com/publications/virtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissism
In essence, self portraits were painted by artists in order express themselves. In a similar manner, we construct our MySpace and Facebook account in much the same manner. It’s true but sadly, not a perfect analogy. There are differences presented in the article such as the malleability of our Facebook accounts.
Paris:
I’m gonna have to cut you off here A.J. You sound too much like this boring Christine Rosen person. Geez 16 pages of this crap. Wtf!
Ok first of all, not everybody painted self portraits in the days of yore or whatever ok? So not everyone scrambles to construct their very own web profiles. Some could care less. You don’t exactly hear people saying, “Omg! I better create a Facebook account before it’s too late!” Give me a frickin’ break lady.
Additionally, our high and mighty author here seems to have either prematurely jumped to a conclusion or simply made an assumption: that there is such a thing as a “timeless human desire for attention.” Timeless? Really? Sorry, but you’re going to have prove that first. Not all of us are self-centered attention seeking bastards like you. You can’t just make up phrases like that just ‘cause it sounds cool. I went to grad school too!
So after this introduction she goes on talking about history. This is the typical “academic fluff” as I would call it. Just a whole lot of pointless drivel. You start with BBSs and eventually build up to social networking site. We get it! But I’m sure glad you pointed out that WELL is now owned by Salon.com or that there’s niches out there provided by Club Penguin or 43things.com. Yeah really, thanks for that. I wouldn’t know what I would have done without that piece of information. *Sarcasm*
Samson:
Aren’t you a little harsh Paris? There’s plenty of value you can get from this article! Such as the implications of growing up in a networking environment or the dynamics of online relationships or…
Paris:
Fine! Shut the hell up! If you want to geek out, read the damn thing yourself! In the mean time, I’m telling you the gist of this horrid pile of words and maybe, just maybe you’ll get something out of what I salvage from this article.
Moving on. Actually skip to the end ‘cause everything in the middle is a bunch of academic nonsense. To be honest, any undergrad freshman can bullshit better than these supposed “implications” or “reflections.” Do you seriously think we’re impressed by throwing around phrases like “monotonous uniqueness”, “conventional individuality”, or “distinctive sameness”? First, oxymorons are not clever. Second, those are all “stupidly stupid” if you ask me.
But don’t go just yet! It seems that we’re losing something of our humanity by conducting such behaviors! I quote, “In investing so much energy into improving how we present ourselves online, are we missing chances to genuinely improve ourselves?…These virtual networks greatly expand our opportunities to meet others, but they might also result in our valuing less the capacity for genuine connection.”
You know what, that may actually be true. I mean, phrasing statements in the form of a question or using words like “might” sure is convincing. Not!
In order to definitively make such statements, you have to get rid of speculations otherwise you’re just plain ol’ bullshitting. This is the problem with social sciences. It’s almost impossible to make empirical generalizations because humans generate very bad empirical evidence. Without that, you get unreliable data. I know this because I’m a political scientist. In any case…
Set up an experiment, find a variable you can measure. A person’s investment in time spent on these sites is one. But don’t shy away from trying to determine a way to measure “genuine improvement” either. There’s a way to measure “human connection” too. You just have to actually do science and not make shit up.
What I’m really trying to say is that there’s nothing wrong with what the author is saying. There’s nothing bad about the assumptions or conclusions. Or even the typical “further inquiry” lines you typically run into these kinds of articles.
But how about trying to prove something instead of giving us grad school social science garbage?
Posted in A.J. Samson, Giles Oliver Paris, articles_ | 1 Comment »
Jacks:
