Everybody should check this out:
The NY Times has an interesting analysis of social networking sites and how they parallel (and potentially even displace) oral forms of communication, creating what some refer to as "secondary orality."
It asks a great question: are the forms of communication we see on facebook and myspace all that new? I am always cautious about any claims that what we see happening in contexts of new media technologies are radically new, so I like this question. But I also find the article's answer--that we can look to so-called "primitive societies" for possible clues to what we see on facebook and myspace--way too facile and simplistic (which even this article suspects). For one, it reinstates a digital divide in which the Other (Papua New Guinea tribespeople, for example) exist outside of the time and space of modernity, existing as "essential humanity" while we "moderns" are wrapped up in our technological modernity and somehow stumble "back" to patterns that are deeply set in our evolutionary history.
The article is here: Friending, Ancient or Otherwise.
Comments (1)
This article and corresponding commentary made me think a lot about the way we think about digital, or on-line communication. Almost every time one of my peers talks about facebook in an everyday conversation, air quotes or some other form of mockery are used to reinforce the fact that none of us really take it seriously. It is funny, because almost everybody I know my age uses facebook or MySpace or both. This article also bring up how we all think of these things as detrimental, but don't really debate it long enough to know why. There is something scary about our realities turning technology-based. To me, what seems detrimental about it is the health aspect. If we are communicating on the internet and not in person, we are sitting sedentary at a computer, not, perhaps, taking a walk appreciating nature or doing an activity with a friend. I would say the human and environmental health aspect is what is potentially upsetting, not the communication aspect, which seems relatively unchanged to me. In fact, I use facebook to keep in touch with far away friends I might lose touch with or see less frequently if it weren't for facebook.
Posted by staylor | December 2, 2007 6:15 PM
Posted on December 2, 2007 18:15