So, if you read this, you likely managed to read my entire facebook post, which I appreciate. Once again, kudos to you 🙂
As you may know, I love technology. And I’m grateful for the ways that I can make relatively substantial contributions to it in my career. However, I’m starting to turn a critical eye to technology—not necessarily to make any value judgments, but to be intentional about understanding its usage, its effects, its cost.
This can be traced back to an article I read about a year-and-a-half ago on qideas.org written by Shane Hipps, who talks about the impact that various media have on building and maintaining community. It’s an article I’ve been chewing on frequently, so much so that I bought his book “The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture” last fall and read it. And then, from that, I bought “Understanding Media” by Marshall McLuhan, which I’m currently reading.
Hipps’ writings are based on the writings and thoughts of Marshall McLuhan, who asserts that the medium is the message. McLuhan defines a medium as anything that extends some function of the human body/experience. Basically, the medium used to communicate a message is also communicating a message alongside (or, even, instead of) the content of the message itself. For example, my message could be “Hey Ashley, how’s it going?” Saying it verbally, writing a handwritten note, sending a text, posting a comment, or sending an email all communicate a message more than the content. He describes dozens of other examples, examining even something as basic as the alphabet, or the wheel, or electricity, or light, as a technology. Hipps takes McLuhan’s premise to examine the ways that electronic technology, particularly the Internet, affects the way community is formed and maintained as well as how the Gospel is communicated. (This paragraph grossly simplifies Hipps and McLuhan; please check out the qideas article…)
So, why am I picking on Facebook? Well, I noticed this pattern over the last couple of months: At almost any computer I find, I will
- Launch IE
- Press ALT+D
- Type “fa” which already autocompletes to facebook.com from its history
- Press Enter
- Stare and scroll at Facebook.
This would be fine if I did it every once in a while. But, I will do it even after just being on Facebook less than 2 minutes ago. At home. At work. On my phone. Why am I compulsively checking for updates so frequesntly? What am I looking for? Is this ‘medium’ extending some existing part of me? If so, what?
I want to know and understand what Facebook, as a medium, is extending as well as understand how much of that is based on the media that it’s built upon: The Internet, Software, Computers, Electricity. In taking this time away from Facebook, the questions I want to ask are
- What does Facebook allow me to do that I can’t do otherwise?
- What does Facebook prohibit that I would do otherwise?
- What do I do in the times where I would have compulsively checked Facebook?
- How do I interact with local friends without vs with Facebook interaction?
- How do I interact with distant friends/family without vs with Facebook interaction?
- Can I stay in touch with friends without Facebook? If so, what friends have this dependency and why?
With these questions, I am embarking on a not-so-scientific experiment to take a break from Facebook for at least 30 days to make some of these observations based on these questions. With these observations, maybe I can know when to and when not to use it. Or, maybe I’ll end up staying off altogether. I dunno, we’ll see 🙂
While I will be making these observations for me, I am interested in hearing others’ thoughts. Would you be willing to participate in this not-so-scientific experiment with me? Do you have additional questions for observation? If so, email me or leave a comment, and I’ll followup.
hollatchaboi!
7 Comments
tmo! I didn’t know you had a blog – but I do now =). Anyway, Liz and I were just talking about this earlier this year… and by talking I mean we got into a little misunderstanding about it that you might find interesting. It stemmed from our two different uses / views of Facebook. I tend to look at FB as a fun place to post jokes or sarcastic commentaries on life but not at all a place to voice or discuss things you care about. I view my wall as kinda a big T-Shirt or even a bumper sticker. The first app I can remember using that integrated with FB was ‘flair’ (I think that’s what it was called anyway), which if you ever used it, was basically like a big TGI Friday’s vest you could fill with ridiculous buttons that might say feature a TRex wearing a sombreo with the caption ‘tyrannosaurus MEX’.
I do, however, often use FB chat / messages as an easy way to get ahold of people once I relized that many younger people I know respond more quickly to FB Message than they do to email. Man that last sentence makes me feel a little old….
Liz, on the other hand, views FB as more of a place to express herself and share things that are important to her from our wedding photos to say what’s frustrating her at work. So she views FB as more of a representation of her life’s ‘status’ at times. Which I just realized is maybe why they changed the ‘post to wall’ button to ‘update status’ … huh…
Anyway – you can probably see how we got into a misunderstanding when I was taking a break one afternoon and poking around the web where I found and then posted some funny pictures to my FB page right after where Liz had posted on my wall that she’s thinking about me. See what had just happened before that was I had seen the post that she was thinking of me and thought, ‘oh – that’s sweet’, and so I called her and chatted for a few min during her lunch break after which I told her thanks for the wall post and that I loved her and hung up. Then she saw the pictures maybe 15min later and deleted her previous post. When I asked her why she said she felt foolish when you could look at my wall and see her post to me, then no reply from me on FB and then a bunch of funny pics I posted and said it’s like I didn’t care about her. I didn’t see how she could think that when I had just called her on the phone to tell her I cared about her and appreciated her little note on my page. She then explained that no one else knew I called her because they couldn’t see that on my page to which I thought who the heck would be judging our relationship by what they see on my FB page and if, hypothetically, someone was doing that why should we care? sooo… yea, we had an interesting talk after that as I’m sure you can imagine =).
Mainly now I’m more aware of how Liz and many others use FB which is slightly different than how I use it. Thought you might find it interesting as well. Good luck with your FB ‘fast’! Btw… it’s probably because I haven’t used a PC in a while but what does ‘Alt+D’ do in IE? =)
really appreciate the questions you are asking. someone I am connected to recently used the word ‘hysteria’ to describe our culture. As long as we stay connected to the hysteria, we will see the world to some degree through the same lens of urgency, crisis, and entertainment. Any intentional effort to disconnect, be it from a car and driving, microwaving food, limiting or eliminating internet / television / mobile phone usage, or even fasting from food… will, I believe, connect us with the things that sustain us more deeply, and change the way we are able to think and reflect.
hysteria is a *great* word to use. it seems like, without hysteria, there’s less need to stay constantly connected to instant media.
thanks dave!
Who is this Dave fellow that commented above? He’s insightful. Someone should pay him just to wax and wane with you, preferably without any other responsibilities.
Also: enjoy the break
Yes!I believe we are walking down the same road Thomas. I’ve been asking the same questions. I just broke down one day, and was like wtf am I doing with trying to stay “connected.”All areas of my life were suffering. So I’ve stepped away from media for a while. I check in w/ fb sometime but that urgency has disapated substantially. I like Dave’s thoughts about the hysteria of social media. Trying to find that balance too.
Oh… Just seeing the rest of your message Dave. Yes! Yes! Yes!
Hey Tmo! Thanks for your thoughts. I think social media will be an ongoing “issue” for me. I’m rarely on Facebook anymore, but I’m OBSESSED with Instagram, and it’s how I’ve grown my business so quickly over the past year. I have a love/hate relationship with it, I think. Mostly love, but I agree that it can become all consuming at times. It’s tricky for me because it’s a part of my business and job now, so for me personally, it will be an important tool to keep around. But, I do want to be aware that just like anything else, it doesn’t become too much. One thing I will say I’ve appreciated is Instagram has fostered a community of people that I didn’t know previously (photographers, other designers, etc) and I have gotten to know so many people in real life because of it. So for those real life connections, I am grateful. Kudos to you for taking a stand with no Facebook. Excited to hear how it goes!
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