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.
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