In her graduate thesis paper, Jennifer Ryan discusses the far-reaching ramifications that social networks have on human communities. She discusses the history of social networks, the way people use them, the feelings they evoke, and the effects they have on people’s lives. Her research has lead her to the conclusion that social network participants:
Use social network sites to extend their offline communities into online practice in a manner more closely in line with the concept of "networked individualism," which suggests we are expanding our social networks (weak ties in particular) according to our cultural tastes and communities of membership. (189)
Jennifer’s thesis is interesting in that she makes a bold argument over who is creating a social identity and the reasons for doing it. Unlike McLuhan’s prediction that society would move from an oral culture to a massive online collective consciousness, Jennifer claims that our online presence is used only to enhance our offline lives. Instead of creating whole new communities, we seek out our likes. In this way our offline lives are still more prevalent than online. We’re not using the Internet as this worldwide tool to improve mankind or connect as a whole species; instead we’re simply using it to connect and strengthen existing bonds.
Jennifer looks at three social networks for her research: Facebook, Myspace, and Tribe. Her study shows that a certain demographic of people connect and use each network. Musicians and high school students have mostly claimed Myspace, Facebook a mixture of college, high school and young adult, and Tribe by the rest of the people leftover. Out of the three, Facebook and Myspace claim spots in the top five of most visited websites. All of the users on these sites manipulate technology to connect with people that exist within their real life communities. Instead of broadening out, social networks help us to focus in to the point where words like “Facebook stalking” are accepted norms. While Jennifer points out the positive ways that we connect and maintain these relationships, she also highlights the loss of privacy that pervades this new social media.
People using these websites are mainly concerned with social and personal vices. The sharing of information is centralized around likes, friends, and lifestyle niches. If you look back at how Shirky talked about existing institutions losing control over the flow of data, you can see where social networks have helped corrode that control. With people joining sites and sharing information based on their likes and desires, web based technologies have been forced to create applications and feeds centered around their audiences. The information on the Internet is so pervasive that if a certain website doesn’t have the information or capabilities we desire we simply move on to the next available resource. An online social network’s capital gain depends on a large number of people constantly being on their site.
The idea of spreadable media becoming the new norm for community communication has been a topic that we’ve covered extensively throughout the semester. Jennifer identifies social networks as the mainframe through which media is now being shared. According to Jennifer:
The Internet provides a platform for the spread of information and ideas that can bring like-minded individuals into contact with one another regardless of temporal or spatial distance. Such perceived potential provides support for utopian ideologies, such as “neotribalism” and “technoshamanism,” that purport to promote the sanctity of humankind- the “sacred” campfire ritual and shamanistic practices described at the beginning of this thesis- utilizing modern technologies to tap into the “collective un/consciousness.” (138)
This idea that the Internet will provide a way for people across the globe to connect and share ideas that will ultimately improve the nature of humankind is an idea shared by Shirky. This idea of neotribalism simply means that the new tribe, the new communities we’re forming are through digital media.
Jennifer’s thesis is centered on social networks and the way people use them to communicate and form identities. I find myself agreeing with her observation that currently we’re using social networks to help cultivate and maintain offline lives. However, I believe she overlooks the rapidly growing online identities that are being formed along side the offline ones. With every passing year I’ve found that more and more offline faucets of life are being invaded by technology. Academic life is now embedded with the need to have online identities and communities that are a separate entity than our offline ones. There are some people and things that are wholly dependent upon the Internet for existence. Professors can now establish and maintain relationships with others in their field without having to first connect offline. The ease with which the Internet allows people to form social bonds, not just strengthen existing ones, is a vital part of social networks.
After reading our texts for the semester and Jennifer Ryan’s thesis I feel that the Internet is still largely underused as an educational tool. Most of the points that Selfe made seem to still be largely ignored or unanswered. We still are no closer to figuring out what technological literacy is, or how we should use it. People seem to be focused on personal benefits that technology provides more than humanistic benefits. I don’t think the question is if the Internet is making us stupid, I think the biggest question is what should we be expecting the Internet to do for us? Technology has evolved so rapidly and become so accessible that I don’t think we’ve had time to carefully examine how or what we really want to use it for. It can do anything. Jennifer writes “the Internet is a complex new medium that allows for the intimacy, interactivity, and casualness of speech as well as the permanency and permeability of writing.” (168) People are still too amazed with it that I don’t think anyone’s ready to stop and consider the points that Selfe or Shirky make. We don’t have rules or regulations for using it for business, education, or world markets. What we really need is a way to examine what we have, what technology and the Internet are capable of, and figure out the best way to manipulate it to become a useful tool and not just a social tool.
Ryan, Jenny. (2008). The Virtual Campfire: An Ethnography of Online Social Networking.
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