While
reading Wiedeman’s article Meet the Prom
Queen of Instagram it became apparent that the life of Lilli Hymowitz and
her famous Instagram page is in direct correlation to Technological Determinism by Baym.
It
is crazy to begin to think about how our life is surrounded by the amount of
likes, comments and followers that we accumulate on our social media platforms.
Our society has made it so that one’s worth is often measured by online
popularity.
Nancy
Baym discusses the term technological determinism and goes into detail about
how machines affect individuals and society. (27) More specifically, the
machines, in this case can be understood as Instagram in which I believe
demonstrates a lose of authenticity and ultimately portrays how our social
lives are highly influenced by technology. (29) When it comes to the prom queen
of Instagram, this is evident as we can see that by only using the absolute
best photos of herself, using filters and constantly editing and deleting
photos the authenticity is lost. In addition, when meeting her in person, it
was noted that she is smaller than onscreen, she doesn’t look 16 online but
when meeting in person she acts like a teenager and her online “tough girl
persona” is much different than her sweet self. All of these examples
contribute to what technological determinism stresses that media outlets can manipulate
an individual through technology and lessen their value.
Baym
goes on to further discuss that technological determinism also frames new ways
of communicating through media as both improving and damaging to personal
relationships and face to face communication. (40) This can be demonstrated
through Lilli’s story as it is noted that when asked to invite 40 people to a
party, she could only think of 6 which is amazing due to the fact that she has
thousands of followers. This example proves Baym’s point in which new media can
be damaging to personal relationships and a lack of reality is seen.
I
choose the technological determinism approach to Wiedeman’s article because I
believe that it complemented the article the most, as it was easily relatable
to the story of the prom queen of Instagram and made the most thorough
contribution to the various topics discussed.
Kristen, another clever caption that drew my attention to your blog post! Your opening statement where you discuss the craziness of our lives being surrounded by constant likes, followers, and comments, but we all understand this which may seem like the crazy part. This is nothing new to any of these students.
ReplyDeleteGreat being in Baym's discussion of personal relationships and lacking reality in them!
Overall great blog post, look forward to reading more!
The title of your blog post is all to familiar to me! As I read it, I can hear one of my friend's saying it as a way of encouragement for someone to pose for a picture and upload it onto Instagram.
ReplyDeleteYou clearly illustrated Baym's discussion of technological determinism and how much of an influence technology has on our daily lives. To the very fact that, through the social engagement on Instagram, people often determine their self-worth or beauty base on the number of likes or comments on a photo.
Do you ever think there will be a point where people will stop being so consumed about the number of likes/comments they get on a photo?
Hi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post on the correlation between Nancy Baym's technological determinism and The Prom Queen of Instagram. As mentioned by Taylor, your opening post stating that our lives are measured more in likes and followers than actual experiences really caught my attention as it is so true! This statement is true for not only myself, but also for majority of my peers. I find this troubling because it increases the anxiety of being online, and because it takes away from meaningful issues like personal relationships and face to face communication.
Good job Kristen!
Great caption!
ReplyDeleteI especially enjoyed the correlation you made with Baym's technological determinism as damaging to personal relationships and face to face communication to the way that one may have thousands of followers but very few actual friendships. I think even Facebook friends and Twitter followers share the same sentiment. We all have these "virtual" friendships that connect us to people. So either we've seen this girl on instagram or follow some guy on twitter but we only know a very limited and subjective version of that person.
There's also the anxiety of social media when someone unfollows us or doesnt 'like' a picture or post. Is that a sign of their friendship? All thoughts I had while reading your post.
Great job!