My reflection on the Psychology of Social Networking

I thought a lot about my digital artifact. It was really hard for me to decide what I wanted to leave in the Internet.
I realised that even if it is going to be about the Internet or how it work I also wanted it to be about people. First I tried to give an explanation about something.  About one of the big questions about the Internet that people always aks them self. But how could I do that . I could give an answer but it would always be an answer just for me.
So I decided to try to make the people think themselves because I think that is one of the most important things when dealing with the Internet. Taking a moment and asking how you personal want to deal with the issues there are.
After Google maybe instagram is the one I used the most. So I got to ask myself what do we really se on instagram. I found an answer for myself. And now it is your turn…
So here it is… my digital artifact:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15b1IXV41m4UEqeG1q-_k2fpPL17W1xkE/view?usp=sharing

“should we utilize psychotherapeutic algorithms to help people and reduce human suffering?”

That is a very complex question I think. Nowadays algorithms are more in more common in our everyday life. But still we are not used to the idea and I have the feeling for most people including me they are still hard to understand. What I understood is that algorithms are collecting data either like the ones on social media and Google by following you trough every step you do on the internet or using the data previously collected for them by someone or something else. Based on these data the algorithm come up with conclusions on the subject they analyzed. They try to analyze the past and predict the future.

As a psychology student statistic is a very big topic and my professor made really sure that we would not mistake correlation as causality. Just because the human birth rate and the number of stork pairs in different European regions correlates still does not mean that the children are brought by the stork. Or even if man are statistically taller than women there are still some women who are taller than some man.

For people it is already hard to interpret statistics in an appropriate way so I have the feeling for an algorithm it must be even harder because they rely on the stereotypes they find in the data.

So to come back to our question in the beginning I do not think algorithm can be used to replace therapists in psychotherapy because I think it might be harder for them to rally understand the individual itself. But I think they could be really useful in the diagnostic progress they are able to even to incorporate to most unknown disease into their analysis a disease the therapist dose not even know. The therapist could work with analysis the algorithm gave in order to improve the diagnose. So in any case I think it is important that psychotherapeutic algorithms are always controlled by an actual therapist who really works with the patient.

When you talk about the internet, social media and new technology it is easy to talk about a dystopian future as well. We have seen it in a ton of dystopian movies how people get controlled by social media, how privacy gets complete lost because of the internet and how new technology takes over the planet. Of course these films are always really extreme in their outcome but I also think that in a way they are a good mirror for the society we live in. I do not think that most of the dystopian movies are about to become true but they are a warning for sure. And it is important to not only see the benefit of it also but also the shadow sites so we maybe take a little step back after watching these and take some power back we give to the internet and technology so easily everyday. Like in everything awareness is important.

In one of the videos someone said “everything is amazing right now and no body is happy” as an explanation of why people enjoy watching dystopian movies so much. It is an interesting thought I guess. Right now the world is pretty good for most people especially when they are born in save country that is financially stable. But still people complain a lot or are not satisfied with their lives. Even tough the conditions look perfect from the outside. But maybe people like the idea that “struggle of survive gives meaning” or just like the idea of a dystopia being an escape of the overwhelming digital word. Which are both ideas from the same video as before.

I really do not wish for the world to become controlled by technology completely. But I also think that is not the most likely dystopia to happen. How people treat each other, capitalism, racism, discrimination and people putting themselves fist no matter what are as much or maybe even a bigger problem. But with these we have to blame our self and can not just give all the fault to something else like technology.

Reading the first chapter of “it’s complicated” from danah boyd made me think about my own social media presence. The chapter is called identity and is about how teenagers present their own identity online in different contexts. He argued that it is way more difficult to make the context clear online because you may be addressing a different audience than the one who is in reality reading your Instagram post or people who you would not suspect are following your activity online. When you sit in a park you mostly can tell who is listening your conversation or watching you interact with your friends by looking around. But on social media if you do not take a close look at the privacy settings you really can not be sure.

So to come back to my own social media. I am actually just using Instagram. And that one app is already taking enough of my time. But I actually really enjoy using it. Of course I do not mean getting lost in the algorithm watching strangers live the “perfect” life. I mean seeing pictures of my friends, people I like but would not have regularly contact with in real live or people that just fascinate me. I think it is nice to see what the people you like are doing in their life. Like this it is a way for me to keep updated about their life even if we do not talk. I like to see how people like to show themselves on platforms like Instagram. Some of my friends Instagram is so different from how I know them but mostly I think it is just because it represents one site of them. I noticed that especially for really good friends it can be weird for me to see them on social media because I know them so much better than anyone could by just looking at their profile. And I know that they are so much more that what they are showing. For my self it is the same. I show my good moments on my Instagram. The ones that look beautiful on picture or are interesting to watch.

Maybe that is actually one of the most important things to remember to not get lost especially in all these beautiful and interesting Instagram pictures. Behind every picture is a bigger sorry and everybody has sides that they do not show on social media. Because I actually think by now teenagers are more aware of the amount of people seeing their picture than you might think.

But still they are teenagers they will do stupid thinks as all the generations did before them. The difference is just that now it is way more likely to get public on social media for way more people to see. Because of that I think it is important that the privacy settings become more easy to handle and that there is more education maybe even in school about them. But in the same time I think a lot of adults should be a little more relaxed. I am sure most of them did the same things that teens are doing today so maybe it is important to accept the fact that a lot more that is happening in teens life today is public. So we know teens from every generation started drinking before they were officially allowed to. I think adults should blame the teenagers less and let them explore them self a little even if it happens in public. Because mostly I think you can tell if the teenager goes totally crazy or if it is still in the norm. Maybe like that we are able to stop a little the perfection we expect people to have because in reality we all make mistakes. And if you do not hurt yourself or somebody else I think that is ok. I think than it should also be ok to make mistakes in public or nowadays on social media.

I am always fascinated by the idea that all people on average are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other. The concept of six degree of separation. So when I read in an article that in one study including six Douglas fir stands Suzanne Simard discovered that there was a connection between almost all the trees by no more than three degrees of separation I was even more fascinated. So apparently a forest is not just a collection of single trees. It is a network highly connected and as Simard emphasizes not only the trees of the same species are connected the forest is also connected in between species. For example in the same study she also discovered that „seedlings that had full access to the fungal network were 26 percent more likely to survive than those that did not.„ I think that is pretty amazing. The forest is all connected by a giant network of roots and fungi. A network we could compare to our own patterns of social behavior. As the trees we humans need each other so we nurture the ones next to us or warn them when we sense danger. But there are also situations where we harm each other, steal each others resources of intoxicate the ones threatening us. So it is a constant “having, giving, sharing and receiving” as joey from friends said and maybe for a wedding speech it was a little to much but maybe it is perfect to describe the network of a forest.

This idea is still blowing my mind a little and I am still not sure if I managed to completely wrap my head around it. But I think it also opens up a new perspective on forests and as Simard also is suggesting maybe a more sustainable way to see and use forests.

Reading about Rhizome learning reminded me a lot of when I first learned about the neurology. The concept that it does not have a real start or beginning and the dots with a lot of connections in between sounded like the structure neurons have. The Neurons are connected in so many different ways to each other and every connection is important. But to really get the knowledge we have in our brain it is more important how the neurons are connected and how they interact.

So to include the structure of our brains in a theory of learning actually makes a lot of sense to me. I mean our brain does not learn lineal either so why should we? Also the idea of no specific starting point of end makes sense to me. Because we always start with different experiences, feelings and also of course different levels of knowledge in a new session of learning it makes total sense that we not all have the same point where we start and where we can connect our knowledge to. So in order to learn like this teaching has to be personalized but that would of course take a lot of time and resources. But maybe would also safe both in the long term because people would maybe learn faster

Sitting somewhere outside in the sun and working. That gives you an idea of the area we are living in and also maybe describes my current situation. Because the internet is not connected to a place anymore the relevance of your current situation looses relevance when it comes to work in the space of the internet. Spaces become less important and for another person it is almost impossible to tell from which environment a person is using the internet from. I could write this blog post from Germany or from Greece, out of my bed or sitting on a desk, being in the office or somewhere at a beach. If you want to guess go ahead!

Also Castell claimed that “network society is organized around new forms of time and space that are not geographically bounded: timeless time and space of flow”. The idea of society and people connecting in it is of course not new but the point that society nowadays do not have to be just the people around you anymore is. The idea that you can form a society with people that are not in the same space as you are or you maybe even have never meet in person before. And I think people got use to this idea pretty fast. It got so normal to not just connect with the people around you but to try to find people you can really connect with, who share your opinion and have the same interests. People connect over a band they enjoy or for organizing political protests. Groups of people who are normally suppressed because they belong to a minority can nowadays connect, organize themselves and like this maybe can easier speak up for themselves. People from all over the word can solidarise and like this raise awareness. An in an ideal word that would be enough to change thinks to the better for minoritys and people who are in need. But I guess the world we are living in is not perfect and I kind of agree with the critics of Castells his theory is a little to idealistic.

Sometimes even if there are a lot of people trying to make a change politics not always pay to much attestation to it because it is still only online. On the other hand in some countries you have to take care about what to post online because the government pays to much attention to it and arrest people for being too political active online. So I guess to create change connecting online becomes more important and more dangerous and at the same time the importance of protest in real live is still there.

Reading the introduction in the book „Its complicated” really mad me think. The author gives you a lot of ideas to think about and also some really new approaches one how the internet and mobile devices are part of our live and especially of the live of teenagers.

What really made me think was the authors comment: „I grew up in an era where going online—or “jacking in”—was an escape mechanism” (page 4) and his thoughts of if it is still like that for teenagers nowadays.

When I think about escaping and getting out of public spaces I do not think about the internet. I kind of think about the opposite. About putting my phone away and not having to be connected. I escape by not having to meet any responsibility online, not having to answer text massages, and not having to check my phone all the time in order to be updated.

As the author says: “Their online participation is not eccentric; it is entirely normal, even expected.”. I agree with that. Social networks are just part of our lives that at least for me you can not use them to escape anymore. Escape is defined as “to get free from something, or to avoid something” (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/escape) and I have the feeling by going online you can not free yourself from society or avoid your normal live anymore. Because online is where a big part of society is shaped and normal live is shared, displayed and planed.

In the middle of the course we got asked how we feel and my first thought was that I feel good. I feel good here in Athens and I felt good in the course. How I feel about the internet? I would say good too. I mean in general I feel good about it and I should. It is such a big part of my life. It provides me information and it keeps me connected to the word, but more impotent to my friends and family. So when I think about it like this, like it would be that small place that makes my life easier I can see the great value it has for my life. I would also say it keeps me save in real life. When I get lost I just use Maps to find my way back, when I cant find my friends at crowded places I just text them, when I am missing a word in another language I just look it up and I can contact my mum every other day so know she does not get to stressed by worrying about me. When I have the feeling someone is taking advantage of the fact that I know less about a topic I can get help from the internet by looking the information up or getting more opinions about it.

But this feeling of safety in the internet is maybe at the same time the most dangerous about it. It can make you share too many too private information about yourself. I have the feeling that it is still difficult to find the right balance between sharing information and connecting with people and keeping yourself save in the world wide web. The timeline form the beginning of new technology that lead to the internet how we know it now was the topic of the last course. From kind of the beginning in 1968 with “Arpanet” to personal computers, the introduction of the world wide web, blogs, Wikipedia, social media and smartphones till the point we are now. So you could say a lot happened the last decades. Maybe to much. When you think about all of it it feels overwhelming.

I think in one way humanity was not ready or maybe still is not ready. We all use the internet everyday all the time but in the end no one really knows how to use it and how to control it and not let it control your life. The internet became so important and so present in our life in such a short time that we now just have to go with it and hope for the best. I guess now we just have to “learn by doing”.