Technological Determinism/Self Fulfillment - My Brother is the Same Age as Katherine

Nancy Baym's position on new media and the anxieties that comes along with them sheds light into our everyday activities and new communication medium consequences. Taking a further in-depth look at our everyday lives allows for Baym's response to highlight how destructive the mobility of new media can be. Baym (25) mentions how through communication people assign symbolic meanings to technology. Due to this concept we can see how anxieties around media effect the daily habits of the everyday person, as we have blurred the term privacy and in turn created a source for "individual and collective 'anxiety'" (Baym, 24). 

Baym discusses the theoretical perspective of technological determinism and it's relationship between technology and the social. In relation to this perspective the Washington Post published an article on the social life of a young 13 year old girl named Katherine Pommerening that highlighted aspects of the force of change that technology allows. Including the idea that we are disconnected from the world around us. In just a short twelve minute drive home, the article expresses how Pommerening focuses on her phone the whole time. Scrolling, clicking, and zooming she opens endless apps such as Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, the NBA app, and even takes time to watch videos on Youtube. Claude Fischer approach to technological determinism can be proven here as it is what he calls "impact-imprint" (Baym, 28). This perspective focuses on the idea that "technologies change history by transferring their essential qualities" and such direct effect nevertheless effects people because rather than "using it" people are "used by it" (Baym, 29). In relation to this idea Pommerening draws attention to the concept of 'likes' on social media. She is being used by the device in a way that she feels if she doesn't receive enough likes the picture will be deleted. Otherwise described as not getting enough attention, the whole idea of this is a popularity contest. One that is broadcasted to the world, 'her' world'. The desire to be "better at her phone" simply allows for the everyday habits of her cellular device to create anxieties simply because it is not just an obsession but a demanding lifestyle. Direct effects of technologies put in a simplistic way is that "the more you use them, the more they use you, and the more you are influenced by them them" (Baym, 29). An aspect of this that is troubling is the ability for ideological images to be circulated. Where a young girl such as Katherine can be influenced by any picture or text she sees at the touch of a finger. She doesn't have the occasional magazine to see what society deems as 'perfect' at the time but instead a constant image of it everywhere she looks; or better yet clicks. This concept is thus projected into the idea of self fulfillment and how anyone who uses social media faces the obsession to be better and for people to notice that. Whether conscious of it or not the self affirmation in notifications, comments, and likes controls users such as Katherine Pommerening. 

“I don’t feel like a child anymore” she says. “I’m not doing anything childish. At the end of sixth grade” — when all her friends got phones and downloaded Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter — “I just stopped doing everything I normally did. Playing games at recess, playing with toys, all of it, done.” (Washington Post, 2016) 

Why I chose to focus on the theoretical framework of technological determinism is because I related to it. Fischer's perspective to me perfectly describes the world in which we live in today. I have two younger brothers, the youngest started Grade 9 this year. The difference between him and I in terms of social media and technology is so large it blows my mind when I think about it. As discussed in class he has been born into new media without knowing any different. His socialization skills involved technologies in ways that even his toys had screens or different interactive aspects to it. After he posted a picture on Instagram the other day I decided to click his profile and noticed that all but the one picture he posted had been deleted. When I confronted him as to why he would delete the great pictures of our dog, cottage, and whatever else. His response was "Em I'm starting high school now I have to have better pictures". That in itself is how much social media effects someone. Just like Katherine my brother is not only being used by technology but being influenced to confine into appearing a certain way on the 'screen'. Self fulfillment has thus changed from one's hopes and ambitions into individual and collective anxieties with the demanding expectations that new medias present. 

Sources:
Baym, Nancy K. Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. Pg 24-29.  

Story Jessica Contrera, Jessica Contrera. "This Is What It's like to Grow up in the Age of Likes, Lols and Longing." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 25 May 2016.