Making New Media Make Sense

       After reading the second chapter of Nancy Baym's book "Personal Connections in the Digital Age," Baym gives readers an in depth explaination behind the introduction of a new digital medium. She discusses the meaning behind the technologies people use for communication and whether or not that medium is a suitable one for use. In order to do this, she suggests that people must first look at a medium from a personal, cultural, and historical stand point in order to make proper judgement. Baym suggests that concerns over new technology is present because people feel that their privacy is violated even within their own homes because of the vast amount of information Web 2.0 is designed to collect and distribute. Baym states: "In addition to technological qualities, social qualities also shape the anxieties we have and the questions we pose about new communication technologies." (Baym 22) Yet at the same time, these insecurities brought fourth by technology may only be cause by it's lack of understanding or fear of the unknown.

      As much as people would like to hate the fact that digital medium like Web 2.0 are taking information from them, people should realize that this is why the medium was designed the way it is to make it easier for everyone in the long run. If the medium had no information to distribute or collect, it's purpose of existing would be ultimately defeated. These features of Web 2.0 are nessessary for the finding and connecting of people and groups and people like it because of it. It's purpose is to make finding people, things, and business easy to find. We cannot help if there are some people we don't want finding us but we can't blame the machine for allowing them to do that. In having a digital identity, there are risks just like there are in real life. These anxieties can be developed through the interpersonal relationships we develope through online interaction. An interesting quote, "When we talk about technology, we are sharing the visions, both optimistic and anxious, through which modern societies cohere[...]the desires and concerns of a given social context and the preoccupations of particular moments in history." (Sturken & Thomas, 2004:I)

      It would seem that with every piece of new technology comes something else to be worried about. However, I don't personally think that this anxiety that people are feeling is directed at the technology itself as much as it is at the stess of social reform and the rapid changing of the way people communicate. Though, Baym had raised the point that the more people connect over these mediums, the more people change as users and creators of new innovations.

"There is a strong tendancy, especially when technologoes are new, to view them as casual agents, entering societies as active forces of change that human have little power to resist. This perspective is known as technological determinism[...]A second perspective, the social contruction of technology, argues that people are the primary sources of change in both technology and society.  The social shaping perspectives sees influence as flowing in both directions. Ultimately, over time, people stop questioning individual technologies. Through the process of domestication, they become taken-for-granted parts of everyday life, no longer seen as agents of change." (Baym 24)

      For some, technology poses itself as a new oppertunity to connect with others. For others, it is seen as a way to re-invent themselves as a new identity, whether it be the same as their identity offline or not is irrelevant. Web 2.0 gives people the chance to re-invent themselves in a new light for the future and as a part of the future. If someone decides that the technology of Web 2.0 is insufficient, then they are inspired to create something better which is precisely what Baym is talking about when we discuss the myth of technological progress. We constantly change our technology while technology is constantly changing us. Whether or not we believe change is good or bad is relative. It is up for you to decide.