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.

New Forms of Personal Connection

       Over the past decade we find ourselves finding eachother a lot easier than we did in the 1990's. Remember the car phone? I remember my dad's old Cadillac had one back in 1990. I honestly thought it was the coolest thing since bright colored shoes. Those were the days...when cell phones needed to be carried around in cases and nobody knew how to use a home computer. Unfortunately (or fortunately) those days are long gone and now people are digitally connected to eachother from nearly anywhere in the world (and it fits in their pocket). Since the emergence of Web 2.0 and new forms of personal connection, people will find it is rather difficult to stay hidden as long as they're stuck to a computer or smart phone. Now we find ourselves communicating nearly all the time but should we be concerned at the way people have resorted to communicating? That texting has become more popular than actually talking face to face. We've all found ourselves in the same situation. We need immediate answers or opinions and choose to text our friends, co-workers, and famly as opposed to actually talking to them over the phone or face to face. But why? To be honest, I have no idea.

      In Nancy Baym's book, "Making New Media Make Sense," she discusses the new emergence of digital mediators that allow people to connect with eachother from anywhere at any time. She explains that there are two different cultural perspectives that this technology may be looked at from. From one side, people might see this as an issue because it is making communication between people more and more shallow, less engaging, and even threaten the sanctity of people's relationships. From the other perspective, it is seen as an easier way to communicate as well as make room for new oppertunities to connect and communicate. Baym argues that either way, people are realizing that this new form of communicating is rapidly changing the way people communicate with eachother through social connections.

      Baym discusses the disappearance of technology through social norms. Once we have held onto a particular peice of technology, it becomes old, worn out, and obsolete. Even still, although this product has lost it's hype, people are constantly using the same method of communication that the product provided. I came across an interesting quote in her book, "When they are new, technologies affect how we see the world, our communities, our relationships, and our selves. They lead to social and cultural reorganization and reflection." (Baym, 2) In a world like ours, we can barely remember what it used to be like when there was no such thing as Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry, or even video games (let alone the awesomeness of multiplayer online). With new media comes new people living in a new world, a world where distance or time is not a factor when someone wants to connect with someone else and where new technology and innovation lead to endless possibilities for Web 2.0 and human interaction. We are inspired to constantly improve, progress, and create for the better of society and for ourselves.

      I think that it is also important to not get caught up with just how addiciting this technology can be. Things like Facebook and Youtube become common distractions and eventually take up most of our time. While Web 2.0 is a machine capable of collecting information, we find ourselves incapable of staying away from it for a short period of time. So comes the struggle for control. Does the machine really control us as much as we'd hate to think? A fitting quote was read from Baym's book: "If negative outcomes can be traced to technological causes, then they can be eliminated with better technology." (Baym 27) Does this mean that we've trapped ourselves in a world of machines? That we've become so addicted to technology that we are physically unable to function without it? This all seems a little far-fetched but it really makes you ask yourself how long we could go without cell phones or internet. We did it in the past didn't we? Wouldn't we be able to do it again? ...No. We gone too far down the rabbit hole...and I think we're totally F'd if somehow we found ourselves totally disconnected. I'd have to agree with Nancy when she says more technology is the only way out because we, too, are like machines; machines programmed to communicate by the most efficient and fastest way we know how. There's no way we'd be able to suddenly quit technology and Web 2.0 cold turkey. However, like our technology, there is no looking back. There is only what the future of Web 2.0 hold for us.

Personal Connections In the Digital Age Conclusion: The Myth of Cyberspace

      In the conclusion of Nancy Baym's book, "Personal Connections in the Digital Age," Nancy discusses the prospect of trying to interpret the new social media that is yet to come in the future of Web 2.0. She explains that the new technology will surround us through our peers, the news, and through various forms of social media, making it something nearly impossible to ignore. However, she makes it sound like something that will eventually run the world we live in whether it be through commerce, education, or basic forms of communication and therefore is imparative that we must be able to interpret and understand the messages behind popular media instead of only looking at it from a face value for what it is.
      She goes on in detail as to the fundamentals of communication through face to face interaction and how technology is slowly deteriorating the relationship people have through physical interaction because of how little people are actually communicating on a physical level. Interestingly enough, she brings up the "niether bad nor good" aspect of Web 2.0. Her quote "Thus we see concerns that mediated communication damages our ability to have face to face conversation, degrade language, undermines our connections to our communities and families, and replaces meaningful relationships with shallow subsitutions." It is almost scary as to how correct Nancy is when she discusses theses issues. We would often deny and disregard these statements as untrue or as a wild opinion, but rather we remember the odd couple that "maintain" their long distance relationship through the frequent Skype dates and video chats when both of them are living on different sides of the country and only see eachother maybe twice a year. Things like this are rarely thought about but is it really stupid or is it a romantic way of showing how love cannot be defeated in a digital age? I'm going to have to go with the latter.

      To be fair, we won't blame it on the internet for being there. It was never meant to be a place for social use as it was a way to store information that was accessable to anyone. Yet, we just seem to surprise ourselves with the way it turned out. I don't personally believe the internet would be as fun or interesting without the level of social human interaction we see on there on a daily basis and amusing ourselves with whatever crude material was posted last minute by a total stranger. The big question is: Why do we bother? This is exactly the answer Baym is trying to get at. She suggests that people need to look over the concrete qualities of previous mediums and forms of communication in order to understand how and why they have expanded or have been replaced. As a result of this, people are finding new ways to communicate and share ideas and information. In doing so, we are creating new identities and personalities in the digital world.

      Baym does not make judgement as to how people choose to communicate but rather she is more concerned about who's communicating, in which context, what their purposes are, and what their expectations are. She suggests that mediated interaction between people through technology should only be used if nessessary, when distance and time are factors or obstacles that keep people apart in which case the use of mediated communication should be used. New media for personal connection get people to think about the social norms we do not fully appreciate and get people to realize it. It gets us to think of new ways to improve them as well as improve ourselves. In making improvements to ourselves, we are making improvements to Web 2.0 by constantly sharing our ideas and information across it just like I am now. To understand ourselves, we must first understand Web 2.0.