This is a review of Social network for two (a song best listened to once only). It’s text – this blog post – and audio – this short MP3 - Social networking for 2.
The argument – such as it is – of the song is that social networking’s a poor substitute for real-life interaction and is premised on inauthentic identity performances. It reminded me of recent comments by Archbishop Vincent Nichols (see Facebook criticised by Archbishop) on the “dehumanising” effect of social media on community life. I was going to add a ‘what a shock, man in frock says something stupid’ comment but this would be an unfair generalisation; Lily Savage has said a lot of sensible things.
Both the song and the archbishop miss the point that social networking allows us to continue and extend real-life, offline relationships; it’s not a case of one (the unsatisfactory, derivative virtual) replacing the other (the real deal of meat space). Here are some quotes I’d use in my intellectual response to the song:
… we need to treat Internet media as continuous with and embedded in other social spaces (Miller & Slater 2000: 5).
The idea of space having been fractured refers to the emergence of cyberspace as a distinctively new space that co-exists with physical space. Cyberspace has not displaced physical space, of course, and will not displace it. Nor, however, can physical space dismiss cyberspace. For the majority of young people in so-called developed countries who are now in adolescence, cyberspace has been integral to their experience of ’spatiality’ since their early years. […] Co-existence is the destiny of these two spaces (Lankshear and Knobel 2006 :31-2).
The digital era has allowed us to cross space and time, engage with people in a far-off time zone as though they were just next door, do business with people around the world, and develop information systems that potentially network us all closer and closer every day. Yet, people don’t live in a global world – they are more concerned with the cultures in which they participate. (boyd: 2006)
References
boyd, d. (2006). G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide. O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, San Diego, CA. March 6.
Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2006). New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning. Maidenhead: Open University Press
Miller, D. & Slater, D. (2000). The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg.
The arguements posed by exactly the type of people you mention are rarely balanced. The quotes you’ve picked out are spot on, really. Boyd does well to point out about people’s concerns with the cultures they participate in, but perhaps a fail on his part is not to have said that the cultures people participate in *may* be global. Unless I’ve missed his point and he’s actually saying culture can be global – to some extent?
And I agree about Lily Savage
I’ve been thinking the same thing re global nature of culture and if it is possible to actually have a global culture….dn’t really know the answer but the feeling is no it’s not possible. Maybe I’ve just not read enough on the subject and am not open to the possibility
Yes, boyd’s really captures this well – we have the ability to connect up with others thousands of miles away but we actually send emails to people down the corridor, comment on the status updates on friends living a few streets away etc. Appadurai’s concept of ‘technoscapes’ is also also interesting: ‘by technoscape, I mean the global configuration, also ever fluid, of technology and the fact that technology, both high and low, both mechanical and informational, now moves at high speeds across various kinds of previously impervious boundaries’ (Appadurai 1996: 34).
References
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press..
Hi Ali – thanks for the comment. I think dana boyd thinks tech has the ability to create a global digital culture although the reality is that our focus is on the local and our use of technology that could link us to people thousands of miles away is actually used to link us to people a few hundred metres away..