The students in my Cultural Studies of New Media course are currently in the process of giving midterm presentations. The assignment was to keep a technology journal for a week, interview a peer, and interview an older adult. Students were to record their own and others’ experiences with new and social media. Students then collaborated in small groups to pull out themes from their interviews and journals and created presentations addressing the role of new and social media in everyday life.

Across presentations, I’m noticing a fascinating trend in the ways that students and their interviewees talk about the relationship between themselves and their digital stuff– especially mobile phones. They talk about technologies that are “there for you,” and alternatively, recount those moments when the technology “lets you down.” Students recount jubilation and exasperation as they and their interviewees connect, search, lurk, post, and click.

Listening to students, I am reminded that the contemporary human relationship to hardware and software is a decidedly affective one. The way we talk about our devices drips with emotion—lust, frustration, hatred, and love. This strong emotional tenor toward technological objects brings me back to a classic Louis C.K. bit, in which the comedian describes expressions of vitriol toward mobile devices in the wake of communication delays. For Louis, the comedic value is found in the absurdity of such visceral animosity toward a communication medium, coupled with a lack of appreciation for the highly advanced technology that the medium employs.

But I think the story goes deeper than this, and becomes not just funny, but also revelatory about the ways technological apparatuses are deeply embedded in the fabric of intimate life.

If the medium is the message, then the apparatuses of social media—hardware, software, and infrastructures—are how we connect, remember, and find our way when lost. These media, that live in our pockets and in our homes, hold the capacity not just to appease or frustrate, but to comfort, disappoint, and betray.

Jenny Davis emotes on Twitter @Jenny_L_Davis

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