A small symbol, but a big deal. Last weekend, Facebook Inc. updated its architecture to better represent users who marry same-sex partners. Until this point, a relationship status of “married” was ubiquitously accompanied by a cake-topper-like icon of a man and a woman.

Now, users can select a male-female, female-female, or male-male icon to digitally represent their matrimony. I want to take this occasion to briefly discuss what it means to construct a self via template, and question the extent to which the binds of templated identity construction are more (or less) severe than general practices of categorization.

It is axiomatic to note that social network sites are spaces of self and identity construction. Through them we present versions of the self, receive feedback from others, recapitulating our histories, documenting the present, and shaping who we shall become. Social network sites, however, are not blank canvases on which users freely write themselves into being. Rather, they are templated architectures through which users (re)formulate experience in an externally determined pattern. If the social network site is both a window and mirror, our experiences must fit within these patterns, lest the image appears warped.

In the case of the Facebook marriage icon, those who reported entering into same-sex unions were, until last week, required to represent said union with heteronormative imagery. They had to warp their experiences to fit the template, or warp their digital representations by omitting (an arguably central) part of their lived experiences.

In short, templated identity construction is quintessentially categorical, and categories are necessarily exclusive. Categories are bounded and binding. These binds shape how we present ourselves, how we think about each other, how we understand our lived experiences, and how we will behaviorally proceed in the future. To live in a categorically organized world that fails to account for one’s lived experience, can be a real form of violence against the self. Templated media offer a mere selection of existing categorizations, narrowing further the tools with which to portray and enact the self.

Certainly, Facebook’s addition of same-sex icons is an important move towards inclusivity, providing more effective tools with which users can present and enact the self. Similarly, a write-in gender option (rather than the current binary male/female options) would be a logical next step in the direction of inclusivity. However, each addition of a new category—or a new templated tool of representation— reminds us of the lived experiences that do not fit, highlighting the problem of categorization that so many post-modern theorists lament.

This all leads me to a final question:  Do templated spaces of identity construction necessarily do violence to experience—narrowing an already binding system of categorization—or are they simply material manifestations of extant categorical binds—made less powerful and less destructive by their explicitness and concomitant visibility?

Last week I delineated Schraube’s concept of technology as materialized action—or the notion that material objects are simultaneously imbued with human subjectivity while independently affecting human experience. I concluded by noting that this relationship between built-in agency and independent efficacy makes the object necessarily precarious—leading often to unimagined consequences.

With this precariousness in mind, I want to focus here on the body as technology, and specifically I want to focus on the body as a potentially politicized technology. I do so using the case of body size.

The body is simultaneously infused with human meaning and independent efficacy. The body is an object created out of human choices about (literal) consumption, adornment, and sculpture. At the same time, the body tells the person to ‘eat this, wear that, desire hir, move like this.’ The body then, as materialized action, is necessarily precarious. We cannot know what affect the relationship between the person and hir body will produce. Does a thin body reflect and affect fitness, or does it reflect and affect poor body image and restrictive self-control? Does a fat body reflect and affect indulgence, or does it reflect and affect acceptance and pleasure?

To embrace this ambivalence, I argue, is the means by which the body—as a technology—can be transformed into a politicized tool. Such a transformation is exemplified in the Fat Positive movements.  Fat Positive movements exist in juxtaposition to narrow (pun intended) beauty standards that not only exclude the majority of U.S. women, but bring about anxiety, guilt, and sometimes dangerous behaviors of voluntary starvation, purging, and/or excessive exercise. Importantly, these sensibilities (a privileging of thinness and its behavioral and psychological consequences) are largely produced through the (often institutionally facilitated) accomplishment of thinness, and the public display of thin bodies. Fat Activists, in contrast, imbue (often their own) bodies with different meaning.

In a culture in which thin is deemed not only beautiful, but also moral, a fat woman in a bikini is a radical act. Embracing this radicalism, Fat Activists proudly display, maintain, and/or publicly support large bodies. In doing so, they use these bodies as objects to affect an explicit kind of change—that of both ideology and behavior—which they hope will alter the subjectivity imbued in future bodies.

In short, with materialized action as a framework, we have a language with which to talk about the body as a tool, one full of human agency with the potential for imagined, and unimaginable, effects. As a politicized technology, the body can be used to challenge not only fatness (as described here), but heteronormativity, binary gender categories,ableism, and white racial privilege. We should be warned, however, that the ambivalence of artifacts, with their potential for unimagined effects, means that the body—like all technologies—can be used for both revolutionary change (e.g. Fat Activism) AND stagnant, sometimes repressive, reification (e.g. Thinspiration). Indeed, the latter is far more common than the former, as it is only through recognition of the body as an object of materialized action, coupled with a propensity for change, that such stagnation can be fought.

Jenny Davis is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jup83

This is part one of a two-part post in which I delineate a language with which we can think about the body as technology, and in particular, politicized technology. We can do so, I argue, with Ernst Schraube’s conceptualization of technology as materialized action. In part one I lay out the theoretical framework of technology as materialized action. In part two, I apply this conceptualization to the body, and focus on the case of body size.

The conceptualization of technology as materialized action comes from a 2009 essay written by Ernst Schraube.  Here, Schraube synthesizes and builds on both Critical Psychology and Actor-Network-Theory.

Schraube begins with critical psychologist Klaus Holzkamp’s conceptualization of objectification—the notion that material artifacts are more than a means to an end, but are imbued with human subjectivity. The initiation of production stems and is shaped by a particular human need, and the produced artifact, as a tool used to satiate that need, carries in it human agency and subjectivity.

Roads, for example, hold in them the human need to work, socialize, and participate in commerce in light of a sprawling landscape and increasingly differentiated division of labor. This human agency is literally built in to the asphalt, road signs, and bridges that enable car and bus travel.

Schraube critiques objectification, however, for ignoring the independent effects of material artifacts upon humans. He succinctly sates:

 It is not only the subjects that do something with the things; the things also do something with the subjects

To buttress this weakness of the objectification perspective, Schraube calls upon Actor Network Theory to argue that indeed, material objects act back upon their human creators and users—instructing them, in the famous words of ANT theorist Bruno Latour,  to ‘do this, do that, behave this way, don’t go that way, you may do so, be allowed to go there.’

Going back to the example of roads, the asphalt, signs, and bridges instruct us on how to get from point A to point B, but also tell us that we may build and live in suburbs, that we may forgo co-habitation with extended family, that we may shop, work, and seek entertainment in geographically dispersed locations, but that we must own a working car or a bus pass, that we must travel to shop, work, and socialize etc.

Importantly, just as ANT shores up the weaknesses of objectification, the notion of objectification reciprocally supplements the weaknesses of ANT—namely the failure to recognize the human root to all technology and the responsibility of humans for the creation and use of technologies.

 To capture both the subjectivity and independent efficacy of technological artifacts, Schraube refers to artifacts as materialized action.

 It is not only the subjects that do something with the things; the things also do something with the subjects. The “means-to-an-end” perspective fails the independence, materiality, and efficacy of things. Absolutizing this perspective holds the danger of voluntarism and an understanding of seemingly disposing freely over created artifacts, treating them just as we want. To make it clear that, on the one hand—in line with the objectification concept—human subjectivity and agency are materialized in the object, while, on the other hand, the materiality of the object can release an independent power and efficacy, I propose to conceptualize the created objects as materialized action 

Schraube further argues that materialized action is often precarious, surprising and necessarily ambivalent. He says:

…Things are more than just societal meanings, more than just socially conceived and produced items. They always materialize, in addition, an unknown action, something coincidental, unplanned, and their decisive power and efficacy can frequently be located just in what had not originally been imagined or intended 

Next week, I will talk about the body as materialized action—a material object imbued with human subjectivity, one that one that affects, instructs, and alters subjectivity.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about how we not only manage our image (outgoing) but also curate our view (incoming). As a very brief summary, I argued, based upon data from my own ongoing social media study, that despite the potential for social media to expose us to a variety of perspectives and opinions (creating a public sphere, or at least a public space), we discriminately select which perspectives and opinions to let in, and which to exclude. In doing so, we curate reality. Though this manifests in a variety of ways, a prevalent manifestation is the management of one’s Facebook News Feed.

A new push for the (apparently long present) feature on Facebook, in which users are asked to “star” the Friends whose content they want to make more visible, further supports this trend. More importantly, however, it demonstrates the mutually influential relationship between physical architectures, normative social structures, and personal practices.

The physical architecture of a space (online or offline) simultaneously shapes, and is shaped by, those who use it. For instance, the typical classroom is set up with an instructor who stands at a high desk in the front of a room, facing students, who sit in low desks, with their bodies and eyes oriented forwards and upwards towards the teacher. This both creates and reflects a particular power dynamic, and guides how participants in the interaction think about and act towards themselves and one another. Similarly, architectures of online spaces reflect and guide who we are and what we do in those spaces.

Although one effective—and indeed widely practiced—way to curate reality on social media is through limiting connections (i.e. refusing Friend requests and Unfriending), there are both architectural and normative obstacles to this practice. Architecturally, the Terms of Service “require” that users go by a real name, making people easily findable through the (architecturally provided) “search” feature. Normatively, users expect their Friend requests to be accepted, and the severance of a Facebook connection holds tangible relational consequences.

“Hiding” a Friend’s posts is far less contentious. This feature has been available for some time on Facebook, but the management of posts continues to progress. With the advent of Timeline, users were offered a nuanced management tool attached to each of their Friend’s posts (see pic below).

Here, one can selectively highlight, limit, or exclude completely the content produced by particular Friends. This architectural feature promotes the practice of reality curation.

In turn, the proliferation of this practice promotes architectural adjustments. In this case, the  architectural adjustment (and Facebook’s commercial push for awareness and utilization of the this adjustment) is that of  “starring.”  Future architectural changes will be inevitably imbued with the manner and extent to which users utilize this and other features.

The following is a  review of Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman’s new book Networked: The New Social Operating System (MIT Press).

Broad Summary
Rainie and Wellman, using scores of data, argue that we live in a networked operating system characterized by networked individualism. They describe the triple revolution (networked revolution, internet revolution, and mobile revolution) that got us here, and discuss the repercussions of this triple revolution within various arenas of social life (e.g. the family, relationships, work, information spread). They conclude with an empirically informed guess at the future of the new social operating system of networked individualism, indulging augmented fantasies and dystopic potentials. Importantly, much of the book is set up as a larger argument against technologically deterministic claims about the deleterious effects of new information communication technologies (ICTs).

Networked Individualism and the Triple Revolution
Many scholars and commentators fear that a move away from social relational structures characterized by tightly knit groups and dense connections—largely caused by quickly advancing digital and electronic technologies— indicates a move towards an individualist, isolationist, technocratic social system. Such fears have been (in)famously proclaimed by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone (2000), by Miller McPherson et al. in a 2006 ASR article, and most recently by Sherry Turkle in her new book Alone Together (2011) as well as in her recent NY Times editorial (discussed here by David Banks and here by Nathan Jurgenson).

Raine and Wellman argue that the “group” versus “individual” dichotomy is fallacious. Rather, they argue that in moving away from groups, we have moved in to networked individualism, where each person (or node) is tied into a large, diverse, sparsely knit network. Here, the person (not the group) is the focus, and the person draws upon and contributes to a rich (though complex and distinct) set of resources residing in numerous networks to which the individual is attached. Networks consist of strong and weak ties, with each tie holding a different kind of value (e.g. emotional support, financial advice, access to gossip, a place to crash etc.). In the authors’ words: The hallmark of  networked individualism  is that people function more as connected individuals and less as embedded group members (12).

The move to networked individualism is a product of a triple revolution, temporally ordered as: the social network revolution, the internet revolution, and the mobile revolution.

The social network revolution refers not to a technological shift, but a relational shift, in which networks—rather than groups—become the systems of support. The authors list three broad cultural and material changes that led to this shift in relational structure: widespread connectivity, weaker group boundaries, and increased personal autonomy. For instance, the authors show that families are smaller with their members (especially women) spending less time in the home, that broadcast media has shifted from a few large producers to specialized stations with niche programming, and that the proliferation of air and car travel has extended social networks geographically. These shifts, of course, are largely technologically enabled, and pushed further through the exponential advancements in digital and mobile technologies.

Both the internet and mobile revolutions refer explicitly to technological shifts, which result from and further constitute relational shifts. The ability to connect online allows people to find others with similar interests, no matter how specialized; it enables people to work remotely, de-coupling co-workers and shared physical space; it facilitates social connections with distant others, and allows for quick as-needed check-ins with a large, dispersed, sparsely connected network. With the increased mobility of ICTs (i.e. the increasing prevalence of mobile phones, smart phones, and laptops) locale and shared connection have become further disentangled. Together, we see a blurring of public and private, work and leisure, producer and consumer.

The authors spend a considerable amount of time assessing the effects of this triple revolution. Are we lonely technocrats, warmed only by the glow of a screen? Or are we liberated and free to fulfill our varied and unique needs, empowered by the affordances of digital technologies and networked structures that let us easily jump from node-to-node as necessary? The authors argue, in line with Zeynep Tufekci’s recent Atlantic article, that the effects are slightly more positive than negative, and that above all, what matters is how social actors navigate this new system—with its particular material artifacts and cultural norms. The authors summarize the revolution—and its consequences—as follows:

Networked individuals live in an environment that tests their capacities to deal with each other and with information. In their world, the volume of information is growing; the velocity of news (personal and formal) is increasing; the places where people can encounter others and information are proliferating; the ability of users to search for and find information is greater than ever; the tools allowing people to customize, filter, and assess information are more powerful; the capacity to create and share information is in more hands; and the potential for people to reach out to each other is unprecedented. Rather than snuggling in—or being trapped in—their groups, people must actively maneuver their networks. Some people are more likely to be network mavens than others, better able to navigate and operate the system (18-19).

This tempered optimism is reflected throughout the substantive chapters exploring how the revolution is playing out in the personal and professional spaces of everyday life. The book concludes with two futuristic scenarios—one in which human life is pleasantly augmented, and another in which digital advancements lead to a walled off, deeply hierarchical, isolating and dehumanizing world. They predict the future will be closer to the former, recognize the potential for the latter, and concede that realistically, the future is not ours to see.

 Two Strong Points

The book has several strengths, but I want to highlight two.

1) First, the theoretical contribution of networked individualism cannot be understated. This gives us a language with which to discuss a shift away from the group, without devolving into a narrative of rugged individualism. It breaks the false dichotomy between individual and group, and eloquently describes the complex reality in which we live.

2) The second strength lies in the data. The authors combine extensive statistical analyses of large random and non-random samples, with in-depth qualitative anecdotes, and poignant personal accounts. This elegant mixed methods approach is the standard of rigor that social scientists ubiquitously herald, but so rarely achieve. This work is a literal reference guide to the empirical realities a networked era.

Two (Tempered) Critiques

I offer here two critiques—both of which require qualification.

1) Though the authors acknowledge negative potentialities of a networked era (and its concomitant technological advancements), there is a noticeable optimistic leaning. For example, on page 96, the authors discuss how people use technology as a buffer between themselves and the physical publics of which they are a part, and frame this as a strength of mobile technologies. Shortly after noting that 13% of U.S. adult cell owners pretend to use the phone to avoid social interaction, and that 42% interact on their phones to kill time, the authors state that mobile phones:

“… reinforce…existing relationships. This…creates a cocoon-like zone of intimacy in which people can continuously maintain their relationships with others who they have already encountered. Thus, mobile phones both liberate and reassure.”

This is certainly one interpretation, but other (obvious) interpretations remain unexplored. Now I must temper this critique by remembering that this work is largely in dialogue (or better yet, argument) with deterministic dystopian accounts. Sherry Turkle, for example, describes the practices of mobile phone users in public as proof that we are disconnected and losing the ability for true human connection (see above). With this in mind, the authors’ choice of framing offers an effective counter to the implicitly-present pessimism of other theorists.

2) In short, I wanted more theory. I wanted the discussion of surveillance (including coveillance and sousveillance) to engage with Foucault; I wanted discussions of the digital divide to be framed with theories of race, class, gender, and their intersections; I wanted discussions of self and identity to call on Mead, Goffman, and Butler. Again, however, I must temper this critique, and thoroughly. First, the book makes a significant theoretical contribution with the introduction of networked individualism (as I noted in the “strengths” section). Second, this is a crossover book, and in depth theoretical references may be counterproductive in reaching a broad audience. Finally, the book is already 300 pages and full of incredible data that act as an invaluable tool for future theoretical work.

Overall, Rainie and Wellman produce a timely and important piece of work. It offers a significant contribution to the social sciences, an indispensable tool for policy makers, and a vital contribution to the knowledge base of the networked individuals who make up present day publics.

Jenny Davis is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jup83

What do people want? As it turns out, it depends on how the question is asked. At SXSW this year, NetBase.com presented a social media analysis of expressed desire. Specifically, they analyzed 365 days of 27 million status updates that begin with the words “I want.” Recently, they followed up with a Harris survey in which they asked 2,000 participants (1,000 men and 1,000 women) “What is the one thing you want right now? Be as specific as possible.” Unsurprisingly, the results varied dramatically. First, check out the infographic, then keep reading for my analysis.

To summarize, the “I want______” social media analysis finds that people desire immediate gratification. In particular, 80% of the time when people “want” something, it turns out to be food. Looking at the top 10 status update wants, phones and cars are the only inedible desires. In contrast, the survey question elicited responses that were primarily financially based, with 50% of participants expressing a desire for money. Of the top 10 wants, non-monetary items included health, sex, and peace and quiet.

Two interesting and interrelated things are going on here. First, we can juxtapose the kinds of desires that Facebook users share via status updates versus the kinds of desires that participants express in response to the survey question. Second, we can look at the ways in which the architecture of a communication platform shapes how we express and define ourselves.

As seen in the infographic, NetBase.com juxtaposes the ostensibly “logical” responses from the Harris survey to “emotional” responses from Facebook. I think this differentiation is somewhat off. Rather than logic versus emotion, the responses seem to differ on the dimension of temporality. Specifically, Facebook status updates are about what people want right now, while the Harris responses tend towards desires with more long term benefits. Spontaneously, we want to gratify our immediate needs. Long term, we want to be able to gratify whatever need may arise. So even though right now I want a calorie-filled, frozen, whipped-topped coffee drink and a blueberry muffin (seriously, my stomach is grumbling) long term, I want to have the financial resources to purchase these coffee-shop treats without dire consequences for my bank account,  and the bodily health to consume these treats without dire consequences for my well-being.

So what leads us to express these different kinds of desires in different contexts? The most obvious difference between the Harris survey and the social media analysis is the spontaneity of the latter versus the elicitation of the former.

The architecture of a communication medium necessarily shapes how we communicate. When the medium is explicitly identity-based (like social network sites and personal interactive homepages), the medium also shapes who we are. Facebook prompts us with a fill-in-the-blank architecture, and invites us to literally update our statuses. We are prompted to share where we are, what we are doing, and what we are thinking RIGHT NOW. As such, we talk about the here and now, and present ourselves as here-and-now versions. We present ourselves in process. Our desires, in this context, are the kind that can be immediately satisfied, moving us out of the current status, and requiring a new, here and now update.

Claire Lomas, promoted by the media as the “Bionic Woman” just made history and sparked inspiration by completing the London Marathon in 16 days.  Averaging about two miles per day, this woman with below-chest paralysis walked her 26.2 miles to finish proudly in 36,000^th place. She did so with the help of a ReWalk suit, a supportive family, and the goal of raising money for spinal cord injury research.

The ReWalk suit resembles closely the Ekso suit that I wrote about previously and raises similar questions. They both enable people with spinal cord injuries to stand and walk. They are heralded by the companies as tools to enhance rehabilitation, mobility, and dignity. They also both leave me with the same uncomfortable uncertainty: is this progress or ableism? (See link above for a full delineation of this uncertainty and a lengthy discussion in the comments section).

Lomas completed 26.2 miles in 16 days. This is billed as a product of sweat, perseverance, and technological progress. Several years ago, I participated in my local MS 50 mile Challenge Walk[i] and saw people wheel 50 miles in 2.5 days. Some of them finished before I did.  Let me be clear on my point here: Lomas’ determination, hard work, and dedication are to be admired. Hers was a hard earned feat and in no way do I want to take anything away from her accomplishment. I do, however, want to call into question the notion of “mobility.”

Is Lomas more mobile in her ReWalk suit, or is she simply more normative?

Let’s look first at an uncomplicated comparison between the wheelchair and the ReWalk suit as technologies of mobility: We will treat Lomas as a representative of ReWalk technology, and the wheelers that participated in the MS Challenge as representatives of wheelchair technology.  Based on this comparison, we would have to conclude that the wheelchair is a far more efficient technology of mobility. Those using a wheelchair moved twice as far in a fraction of the time as the person in the ReWalk suit. Unfortunately, this comparison grossly oversimplifies the notion of mobility, as we do not live (or move) in a world designed like a race course.

To truly compare the technologies, we have to think about mobility in the everyday sense. We have to ask how each technology enables or constrains movement through public (and private) physical environments. How easy or difficult is it to attend school, shop for groceries, or enter a place of business? How often must a person decline social invitations, ask a stranger for help, or miss out on career opportunities? When we take this perspective, the conclusions get a lot blurrier. In this sense, the suit may well be more efficient than the chair. Indeed, in a world in which ramps are not universal, disability parking spaces are impractically located, elevators are sporadically available, and retail facilities have narrow aisles and high check-out counters, the option to stand upright could be irreplaceably valuable.

The question therefore returns to priority: improve the infrastructure or normalize the body? I do not purport here to have the answer, but instead, argue that we MUST ask this often ignored question. To do so, is to look with a harsh light at our assumptions and ingrained value hierarchies as we apply them to the bodily condition.  Perhaps the rawness of this view is what keeps the question largely unaddressed.

It was the first year of the new millennium, and at 16 years old, I bared my metal-clad teeth in a proud smile for what would be an appropriately hideous driver’s license photograph. On this momentous day in my young life, I volunteered to be an organ donor.  My status as an organ donor is not something that I often talk about—mostly because it is not something I often think about. In fact, I often forget that I am an organ donor until someone makes a verbal note about it while looking at my (updated but still appropriately hideous) driver’s license picture, at which point I silently congratulate myself, and seamlessly forget until the next time. In theoretical terms, my organ donor status is not a salient part of my identity and it is rarely an attribute through which others interact with me. This is about to change.

A new feature on Facebook Timeline works to bring greater salience and greater visibility to organ donation. In a new “Health and Wellness” section, users can designate themselves as organ donors. This not only becomes a “Life Event” but is also shared with Friends via Facebook News Feed.  With 72,961 active candidates currently waiting for organ donations, this feature represents peer pressure at its best.  The powerful chiding of “everybody’s doing it” in this case, will save lives.  But today, I want to talk about something else, something a bit more abstract.  Specifically, I want to talk about the way in which this feature epitomizes the postmodern blurring of categorical lines that we so often reference here at  Cyborgology.

Of particular note, are the blurring of lines between physical and digital; life and death; personal and public; and formal and informal.

Physical and Digital

Here, we have the most physical of physicality—the internal organs of the body—affected through digital action. To designate oneself as a donor is to promise a literal part of the physical body to another unknown person, whose body will be operated upon and potentially restored through the hands of a surgeon, the organs of a stranger, and the content of this stranger’s digital profile.  Facebook users can literally share digitally their desire and intention to share physically.

Life and Death                                                                                       

Plainly, organ donation saves lives, but does so only through death. In its own right then, organ donation blurs the life/death dichotomy.  The displaying of organ donor status through Facebook blurs this line further. Facebook is an avenue through which social and personal life are presented, enacted, interpreted, planned, and negotiated. Increasingly, it is also a space in which lost lives are remembered. With the organ donation feature, Facebook is now a tool through which users plan for their own deaths in a way that affects how they are seen during their lives.  The display of organ donor status in one’s Timeline is simultaneously a tool of self-presentation, future memorialization, and practical direction about one’s end-of-life wishes.

Personal and Public

Discourses surrounding social media often discuss the changing relationship between public and private. In this case, I think we are looking at a changing relationship between public and personal. Privacy denotes that which is shared with no one, or only with a select few. Private information is that over which the subject can/should have control. Organ donation has never been “private” in this way, as it is openly displayed upon a public identification card. Rather, organ donation has been very personal, a choice about the body that each individual is respected to make for hirself. With the Timeline feature, this choice now becomes a public identity marker, something to be sociallydisplayed, commented upon, and potentially, conspicuously absent. Organ donation, as displayed through Facebook, is at once a deeply personal decision about death and the body, and a public display of generosity, fear, and/or  general health—as those who cannot donate may find themselves publicly justifying their non-donor status.

Formal and Informal

The traditional designation of oneself as an organ donor is accomplished through wholly formal channels. This involves government agencies, official documentation, and sometimes lawyers.  Facebook, a self-constructed and largely unregulated space is, by design, unofficial. And indeed anyone can designate hirself as an organ donor on Facebook, whether or not s/he is officially registered. Adding organ donation as a life event does not necessarily reflect one’s location on the donor list, nor does this action automatically add the person to this list. It does, however, link the user to the official registry, where Facebook Inc. encourages members to document their choice—making it “official.” Moreover, even if the user never registers, the public documentation of organ donor status might hold legal weight when, in the occasion of a person’s death, the family is asked to make difficult decisions regarding the body of the deceased.

Whether you think that Facebook has made a strong move in a positive direction, or has once again taken sharing too far, the organ donation feature on Facebook embodies the categorical melding that represents a connected era.

I have mentioned previously on this blog that I am engaged in an ongoing, qualitative, Facebook-based project looking at the experiences of social media users. None of the work from this most recent project is yet published, though I did use the data for my TtW2012 presentation. As I move into manuscript preparation, there are several theoretical and empirical trends that I need to flesh out.  I hope that readers will indulge me today as I work through one such trend. I especially hope that readers will offer critiques and literature suggestions, as the end product will inevitably be strengthened through collaborative input from this academic community.

Specifically, I hope to flesh out the notion of reality curation. Much of the work on social network sites focuses on self-presentation, or the ways in which people curate images of themselves.  These strategies of image-curation include friending practices, selective photographic and textual displays, and careful utilization of privacy settings—among other practices. Users are careful about their self-images, diligent in their upkeep, and protective against identity threats. Undeniably, I see these laborious practices of protection, maintenance, and care in the participants of my study. I also, however, see a second kind of labor; I see a diligent upkeep not only of outgoing data, but also incoming data. In particular, participants report careful curation of their Facebook News Feeds and (when applicable) Twitter networks.

This second type of curation—the curation of data coming in—is empirically and theoretically interesting. Work that focus on self-presentation (data going out) understands social network sites as both window and mirror—spaces for both voyeurism and self-reflection. This implicitly neglects, however, the idea that windows work two ways: they offer a view from outside in, but also a view from inside out. Social network sites, as opposed to non-social websites, are spaces of simultaneous projection, reflection, and, as I argue here, observation by the prosumer of the Profile.

Although self-presentation studies assume that observation takes place (indeed, it is largely for the observing audience that the actor presents hirself), the role of the observing audience is largely relegated to that for which the actor must account in preparing and situating hir performance. In contrast, I focus here on the very active role audiences plays in curating the performances that they “attend.”   Or, in other words, the ways in which viewers curate a sense of reality.

In particular, participants in my study show a strong sense of confirmation bias, or seeking out information that confirms what one already thinks. This coincides with research on selective exposure on Blogs and news sites, which show that people largely seek out those information sources that confirm (rather than challenge) existing perceptions and opinions. The affordances of social network sites, however, which facilitate broad and diverse networks that spread information quickly and publicly in a shared space, have the potential to create a melting pot of voices, a true public sphere, a mind-opening mecca of digital bits.  Even though we know that social network site users generally connect with those who they know in the offline world, the problem of context collapse suggests that there remains enough diversity within these networks to necessitate exposure to divergent worldviews. Agentic users of these sites, however, actively resist such exposure.

Just as existing studies show that social actors work to eliminate that which threatens their self-concepts, participants in the present study engage in serious labor to eliminate information that threatens their worldviews or “ethos.” These threats come in several forms, and are dealt with in a two-tiered manner.

Thus far, I have seen three main threats to actor’s worldviews: 1) politics, 2) religion, and 3) demeanor.  Politics and religion are straight forward. Participants report working to block out political and religious views that contrast with their own, and seek out those with whom their own views coincide. Demeanor is a bit trickier.

By demeanor I refer to a way of being in the world. This often manifests as affective states, humor, and language use. For instance, participants express frustration at those who perpetually display either unfettered joy, or unrelenting despair. It seems that these extreme emotions, perpetually displayed, fail to fit into an affective reality of fairness—where nobody gets to be happy all the time, but nobody has to drown in a pool of their own depression. Participants often roll their eyes when talking about each of these groups, questioning the realness of the displays, complaining of the effect of such displays on their own emotional states, and often, removing those who display perpetual extreme emotion from their field of vision. Similarly, participants complain about those who post content that is of no interest to the viewer, often referring to the way someone “clogs up” their News Feed with unfunny jokes or offensive language and links.

Participants manage these threats in a two-tiered manner. At the base level, participants seek out those connections who confirm their ethos, while eliminating ties to those who threaten it. I refer to this as selective connection. At a more nuanced level, rooted in the social norm of accepting and maintaining particular formal connections, is the elimination of ethos threats from view. I call this selective visibility.

In selective connection, participants report de-friending people on Facebook who post content that contradicts with their religious or political views, or offends their sensibilities of demeanor. Similarly, they report using Twitter to follow political pundits, commercial establishments, and news and entertainment outlets that  present information in the bent that dovetails with the participants own preferences. Connections are actively sought, maintained, or severed based on the incoming information that these connections produce.

Selective visibility takes place largely through the “hide” function on Facebook. Social norms dictate that we maintain certain kinds of formal connections. For instance, it would be rude to de-friend your mom and costly to de-friend your boss. Participants manage this norm by simply removing the content of ethos-threatening posters from their News Feeds. The connection remains, but the voice associated with the connection is silenced.

Together, these management strategies work to curate a landscape at which participants are comfortable gazing. And it seems that participants are most comfortable with a confirmatory view. In looking at reality curation, we not only better understand the active role of social media audiences, but also address questions about the expanding versus shrinking nature of our social worlds in the digital era. We can also address the mutually constitutive relationship between technology and reality.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project and researchers from Elon University asked over a thousand “experts” about the future of money. Specifically, they were interested in the potential replacement of cash and credit/debit cards with smart-device technologies.

The majority of respondents (65%) believe that smartphones will largely replace cash and credit/debit cards by the year 2020. Others, however, believe that our infrastructure is too closely tied with a cash/card based system to be fully replaced. Further, most experts note that not ALL consumers will make the switch, as some will resist over concerns about privacy and anonymity. Finally, many predict that adoption will differ across demographics (with younger consumers replacing cash/credit at a faster rate than older consumers). Read the full report here.

Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine a largely smart-device based currency system—as this is already prevalent in Japan and growing in the U.S..  The next step is to imagine the social implications of such a system. I believe that these implications will be twofold: First, we will become more efficient consumers. Second, identity and practices of consumption will be more explicitly and directly linked—solidifying the connection between self and stuff.

Digital commerce makes us more efficient consumers, and the ability to fully digitize commerce pushes this efficiency further. Specifically, we can shop remotely, travel lighter, and more easily break through currency boundaries within a globalized economy. The ability to shop remotely is already widespread. A large proportion of smartphone users purchase APPS, give donations, purchase goods and services, and cash in on deals directly from their mobile devices. With an increasing ability to swipe or touch using near-field communication capabilities, the consumer’s full consumption tool kit resides in a single device, reducing the load and making the consumer always prepared for a purchase, whether the desired product is online, inside a brick-and-mortar establishment, or in the possession of a peer.  Finally, in a globalized economy, mobile-technologies might help break through or work around currency barriers. As one respondent to the Pew survey notes:

One of the interesting implications of swipe-based transacting is the question of what currency will be used for it. It becomes much easier to handle currency conversions, or insist that all one’s transactions take place (from one’s own side) in a single currency or in whatever currency is at the moment the most advantageous for the transaction.

Of course, “how” these currency barriers will be negotiated remains an open question. As the above respondent continues:

And then the problem starts getting interesting— designing the software that will search among currencies and find the optimum for both parties in real-time is not necessarily easy!

 The second implication (which is very much entwined with the first implication of efficient consumerism), will be a more direct and explicit link between self and stuff.  Critical theorists have long argued that we literally consume identity through the things that we buy and the media that we ingest. Indeed, Zygmunt Bauman describes a viscous cycle of consuming and trashing identities in a breathless and fruitless attempt to avoid being left behind. Digital commerce, and mobile-based purchasing in particular, holds the potential to amplify this connection. Not only do we display our identities through the products of our consumption, but announce these purchases, increasingly seamlessly (or “frictionlessly”) to our social networks.  Imagine that each swipe of the phone becomes part of a Facebook Newsfeed. Increasingly, our purchases will integrate into the curated content of our prosumed profiled selves, which act as both projector and mirror, affecting how others see us, how we see ourselves, and how act and interact in light of this projected/reflected image.

Follow Jenny on Twitter: @Jup83