Christy Ridd – Social Media and Digital Cultures

Is Knowledge Acquired?

Connectivism is a learning theory that knowledge is not acquired and that learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. Stephen Downes, one of the founders of Connectivism, stated in his blog post “WHAT CONNECTIVISM IS” in 2004 that “at its heart, connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks”.

I both agree and disagree with this theory. Knowledge can still be acquired, and should still be acquired, through self learning. Knowledge starts somewhere, it does not appear spontaneously. Knowledge is gained through personal experiences, critical thinking, reading, discussions and your network of connections. The connections we form can aid in our learning, but we can not limit our learning or knowledge to our connections.

As I work with students in higher education, I find a prevailing thought process that teachers jobs are to give them information. They do not need to do the readings and answers should just be given to them. I find this lack of ownership towards learning to be a side effect of connectivism. Before you can contribute and also gain knowledge from your network, you must have a baseline of knowledge yourself which can only be acquired through self learning.

What we learn is up to us. It is not up to others to learn for us and then share that knowledge.

The Race for Attention

The race for attention is nothing new. People like being noticed and they being paid attention to. This has been true since before history was recorded. What is new, is that the race for attention is now being fought virtually by tech companies. Our mobile devices now demand more of our attention than we ever demanded or tried to achieve from other people. Our time is being spent not with people, but with our phones as we check our notifications, social media posts and play online games.

Tristan Harris in his TED talk “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day” mentions how that race for attention is changing our world, our conversations and our relationships including how we want to have them. I completely agree. People no longer know how to talk to anyone else unless it is through a device. The art of conversation is starting to disappear.

It is not rare to go to dinner with friends and have everyone get their phones out after the food is ordered and check in with social media, notifications, emails, texts, etc. People are addicted to checking their notifications, checking their email and making sure they are “not missing anything” when in fact, they are missing IRL (in real life) interaction.

Most people joke that “Google owns me” but it is not really a joke. Mark Stone wrote in a Techvibes article “ Google Owns You. But You Already Knew That, Right?” describing just how much of our personal information Google owns. The other tech companies are no different.

People have become complacent about lack of online data privacy and the amount of time and effort social media demands. This complacency is creating a vicious cycle where tech companies are becoming more and more persuasive and learning better techniques so that we will give them more of our attention. As we give them attention we have less attention for our IRL.

Tristan Harris proclaims that “we need new models and accountability systems. So that as the world gets better and more and more persuasive over time” the “goals of the persuader must align with the goals of the persuadee” and be accountable and transparent to what we want. We need to lose our complacency and group together to demand those new models and accountability. It is not ok to lose ourselves to the virtual world at the expense of our relationships in the real world.

What are your thoughts on the race for attention? Do think people understand the amount of time they spend online?

Think Before you Speak

I have taken a lot of time this week trying to figure out just what to write. I agree with all of the reponses people listed in Dr. Dunlap’s blog, Five Problems with Social Media. I also think I have come across all these problems with either myself or people I am close to. One of my best friends is completely addicted to social media. But I also have another who is completely addicted to Netflix.

What I think Paul Miller found during his year of the internet, is that the internet is not to be blamed for everything. I think that is also true for social media. When the age of the internet started in the 90’s, it’s true that everything started changing and changing at an exponential rate. Growing up with no internet, then easy access to the internet at home and then having basically 24/7 access with the advent of the smartphone has changed people’s lives. But when I think back, we all had things we were addicted to before the internet and social media came. The addictions have changed, it may have even made us a more addictive society, but the basic habits are nothing new.

The one thing I think social media has contributed more to anything else is the level of bullying that occurs. Bullying has a perception of being a school age thing with words and fistfights. But adults bully more often and harsher than any teenager I have seen, especially online through cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is using texts, photos, videos or any other electronic communication to make someone feel angry, sad, embarrassed,etc.

Many people don’t realize they are initiating or participating in cyberbullying when it happens because they don’t see the victim and their virtual friends validate their thoughts, comments and viewpoints. People at a base level are reactionary, but online, this has become even more so. Since you are just putting words out there, they don’t take a beat and think before talking. Instead, whatever is in their head, comes out and it is too easy to hit post. There is also no one talking back saying “wait, let’s look at this another way.”

Cyberbullying reminds me of rioting. You may be at a peaceful march, but then people start shouting, others jump in, and now you have a riot. I like how Molly Edmunds explained this in her article, “How Riots Work.” She explains “They lose their individual values and principles and adopt the group’s principles, which, during a riot, are usually to cause destruction and avoid detection… Being in the midst of a mob can be exciting and powerful, and it can make people feel invisible — they are part of a huge group, and they won’t be detected or held responsible for their actions.”

Riot mentality has been around forever. It’s just much fast with the internet. I think a lot of the problems in social media are around this idea of instant, fast communication. Online communities can be just as valuable as in person communities, they just do not contain the filters you have in a group of people. I think we need to start putting our own filters on ourselves and realize virtual consequences are just as real as in person consequences.

Internet Privacy or Safety?

About a year ago, I was at my parents house and a commercial came on for Amazon’s Echo. My dad, being very opinionated, went on a verbal rampage about Echo products and how they record everything they listen to. He blamed home smart devices for the decline of everyone’s privacy. He wasn’t happy when I reminded him his cell phone listens to him all the time and that wasn’t any different. Imagine my surprise when several weeks later my dad became a proud owner of several Google Home Minis. It turns out his issue was less about “privacy” and more about “not letting Amazon own his life.” This makes sense when you think of privacy as control of the data you generate and not privacy as being free from being observed or bothered as I was thinking of it.

When it comes to information or data privacy, I am one of the many people who feel resigned to not having any privacy. I know that every time I swipe my card to buy something, the store records my data and my bank records my data. I also know they use my data for marketing and sometimes they sell it. But, I have to buy stuff and I don’t carry cash. I have a smartphone and I know it’s listening to me right now as I talk and type. But I don’t turn voice activated functions off because I don’t think it matters in the big picture. There is no data privacy in today’s world.

When I think about social media privacy, I think about whether or not I am safe online. The answer, unfortunately, is no. I have no idea if the people I have “friended” are actually the people who I think they are. I know too many people who have had their social media identities stolen. Privacy settings on social media are limited. For example, profile pictures are public and it is easy for someone to copy and use your picture to create an account for themselves and pretend to be you.

A few years ago, I was less concerned about internet privacy and ended up the target of an internet stalker who used social media as their stalking platform. They friended me as someone I knew, but had not talked to in a while, and then proceeded to invade my life. A few months ago, my safety concerns reemerged when someone stole my mom’s Facebook identity. One morning at work, my phone beeped and informed me my mom was on messenger so I started chatting with her. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes in when I realized it was 9am and there was no way my mom would be awake. I called my parents house and sure enough, she was asleep. Her privacy settings had gotten “reset” to global after the last upgrade and she had been posting publicly. This allowed someone to match her personality by reading her posts and imitating her.

Since then, I have learned to make my social media accounts as private as possible and I never friend anyone until I talk to them first and verify the account is theirs. Since everything I did to hide my presence used “privacy settings,” I determined that privacy was my issue when really it is safety. Privacy settings can not guarantee our safety online. Privacy settings create isolation which is the opposite of the online communities social media creates.

As I started my MA program, I realized during my second class that social media would be important for my studies. I have been working on finding a way to be open on social media professionally while still retaining the safety of having my personal social media closed. I am sure the balance between safety, privacy and community will not be easy to find, but, I will find it.