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[ethnographea]

There are hundreds of selfies in my phone, repeated images at different angles. None of them posted, they gather dust on my hard-drive.  

Social media is often characterised by ‘self-absorbed individualism’ (Miller 2017), bringing a feeling of narcissistic indulgence whenever I use it to post about myself. Yet this narcissism is not without dilemma, how do I present myself in my best light when I don’t know who will see it? Catering to an imagined audience (Pitcan et al. 2018) is exhausting, the possible viewers are unbounded and unspecified (Hogan 2010) and I do not know how to make myself appeal to everyone all at the same time. Sometimes I find it is instead best to post nothing at all.

[ethnographea]

As I switch between apps, I feel I am swiping between facets of myself. I’m a daughter. A friend. A stranger. I make these decisions in presentation effortlessly, changing personality on every platform.

I feel my online presence is instead better characterised as presences, each platform its own ‘different online space’ (Costa 2018). Online presence is often feared to suffer from ‘context collapse’ (Marwick & Boyd 2011), where users struggle to decide how to self-present to mixed audiences on a singular platform. I avoid this by creating different forms of sociality through polymedia (Miller et. al 2016), becoming one person on Twitter and a separate one on Facebook. The possibilities for self expression become limitless in a daunting way.

[ethnographea]

All my friends post the same political infographic to their feeds. There is outrage at the opposition. I wonder where the opposition is.

My social media feeds is a ‘customised cottage’ (Miller et al. 2016), catering to my interests and political views. Algorithms hand-feed me content I like, exploiting my attention. Although pleasant, I am hyper-aware of the ‘increased polarisation’ (Slotta 2019) of social media feeds. What does the other half of the internet think, beyond my circle of like-minded friends? What is the value of reiterating the same statements in an endless echo chamber? Have we become blind to this divisive ‘infrastructure of online cultural life’(Seaver 2018)? I feel both informed and disconnected at the same time.

[ethnographea]

My fingers twitch, ears straining to hear a notification sound that is not there. Even stronger, a sense of guilt. Why do I live this way?

The medicalisation of social media (Sutton 2020) has made me anxious about digital harm. It feels like I am limiting myself from reaching my true potential, participating in something unnatural. Even if I consider digital harm to be a social fact, I am constantly reminded of exactly how much time I spend immersed online as opposed to offline. Will I be doomed to spend the rest of my life in the virtual, held back by the ‘fear of missing out’ (Dhir et al. 2018), unable to live life in the real?

[ethnographea]

I glimpse snapshots of my friends and family’s lives through Instagram without having to interact with them, a comforting presence in an era of loneliness.

In the age of Covid-19, social media has created an avenue for connection despite physical isolation. Commonly there are moral panics that online sociality will replace pure social interaction (Couldry & van Dijck 2015), but in 2020 this is instead welcomed. Use of digital platforms allows for a sense of ‘ambient co-presence’ (Madianou 2016). Users feel included in the lives of those they follow, glimpses into the going-ons of celebrities, friends and strangers alike. In a time where hope for offline interaction is dim, social media offers hope and optimism, a way to connect with others in a passive fashion.

[ethnographea]

bibliography

all images are created by the author

Costa, E., 2018. Affordances-in-practice: An ethnographic critique of social media logic and context collapse. New Media & Society, 20(10), pp.3641-3656.

Couldry, N. and van Dijck, J., 2015. Researching Social Media as if the Social Mattered. Social Media + Society, 1(2). 

Dhir, A., Yossatorn, Y., Kaur, P. and Chen, S., 2018. Online social media fatigue and psychological wellbeing—A study of compulsive use, fear of missing out, fatigue, anxiety and depression. International Journal of Information Management, 40, pp.141-152.

Hogan, B. (2010) ‘The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online’, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(6), pp. 377–386. doi: 10.1177/0270467610385893.

Madianou, M., 2016. Ambient co-presence: transnational family practices in polymedia environments. Global Networks, 16(2), pp.183-201.

Marwick, A. and boyd, d., 2010. I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), pp.114-133.

Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., Spyer, J., Venkatraman, S. and Wang, X., 2016. Academic studies of social media. In: How the World Changed Social Media. London: UCL Press.

Miller, D., 2017. The ideology of friendship in the era of Facebook. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 7(1), pp.377-395.

Pitcan, M., Marwick, A. and boyd, d., 2018. Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23(3), pp.163-179.

Seaver, N., 2018. Captivating algorithms: Recommender systems as traps. Journal of Material Culture, 24(4), pp.421-436.

Slotta, J., 2019. The Annotated Donald Trump: Signs of Circulation in a Time of Bubbles. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 29(3), pp.397-416.

Sutton, T., 2020. Digital harm and addiction: An anthropological view. Anthropology Today, 36(1), pp.17-22.