To write an article about social media sites in the era of technical acceleration means condemning the words and ideas of this article to death, because what you notice and write about today may change and disappear tomorrow. It is a matter of time before an internal update comes – such as the addition of the daily stories feature – or an external shift – such as the rise of populist discourses, to affect our experiences in the timelines of social networking sites. As the experience changes, the use of the site is reshaped, becoming either a reinforcement or a disincentive for specific behaviors, which generates new phenomena that require a different reading, rejecting what was previously written and taking us back to the starting point. Between the delay of sober writings and the superficiality of hasty writings, we find ourselves stuck in Cyberspace Limbo without the slightest understanding of what it means to be here, between the real and digital worlds.
So, in the midst of this limbo, we ask: How can we understand social networking sites? What are the basic tools and concepts that will enable us to do this?
The Concept of “Extensions of Man”:
This fundamental understanding that we seek is what the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan tried to reach in his famous book Understanding the Media in 1964. We are not talking here about his immortal saying: “The medium is the message,” nor about the concept of “the global village,” which he predicted nearly half a century before the social media revolution, but rather about the philosophical perspective that he adopted in his analyses and which was so important that it became the subtitle for his famous book, the concept of “The extensions of man”. Whoever reads McLuhan today will find his writings touching our reality through this concept in particular. This is because “extensions” as a conceptual tool provide a historical reading extending across eras of technical development, that is, the conceptual framework through which McLuhan presented his analytical readings. In this framework, the electrical age is able to return to the past and analyze the technical phenomena of the industrial age, and it can also jump to the future and analyze the technical phenomena of the digital age. In his book, he repeatedly tells us that all means of technology – modern and ancient – are extensions of the functions of the human body. The radio is an extension of our ears, the television is an extension of our sight, and the car is an extension of our feet. In this way, we can say that smart devices are an extension of our brains, and the internet is an extension of our world, and so on, until we reach the peak of technical extensions in the fact that information carriers – such as optical fibers, for example – are an extension of our neurotransmitters, and thus the digitization of human consciousness is accomplished as it extends into virtual space. McLuhan accurately predicted our arrival at this point when he said: “In this electric age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness.”
The “Technological Determinism” Defect:
In view of these words, we cannot help but acknowledge the right of the title “The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves” to Marshall McLuhan instead of the character of Howard Beale in the movie Network – 1976, even if McLuhan is less angry and more balanced than Beale. However, he shares the pessimistic prophecies of what is known as “technical determinism.” It is the approach that believes that electronic devices have the predominant influence on the user, and that their impact is often negative on the individual and society. We find that most studies of “technical determinism” focus on the impact of the Internet on our concepts, behavior, and social relationships, while marginalizing the value of the content consumed or the behavior practiced over the network. If the results of a study show that we spend more time on electronic devices instead of reading books, this does not mean that we do not use these devices during these hours for cognitive acquisition! Here lies the flaw of this approach, which is that it demonizes technology by presenting it as a dark, featureless image. This is one of the manifestations of the “anxiety of the digital age,” which leads us to the heart of the other problem that plagues writings about social networking sites, which is the problem of tone.
The Problem of “Anxious Tone”:
Can we say that the Internet is absolutely bad? Can we consider the problems of video games to be among the major crises that affect the quality of education for the emerging generation? Can we compare the consumer phenomena of online shopping to what can be purchased in the criminal depths of the Web? Simply put, we can’t. So, why do the writings on “technical determinism” portray a catastrophic reality in which electronic devices lead us to the brink of the abyss? The answer to this question lies in the concept of anxiety itself, where psychiatry textbooks define anxiety as “a response to a threat that is unknown, internal, vague, or conflictual.” In the case of “digital age anxiety,” we find that this response is directed toward the internet. That is, the source of the anxious theorizing that fills the writings of technical determinism is the feeling of danger from what is unknown and mysterious about the digital world. This anxious tone represents a problem for us that we must dismantle and overcome if we want to provide a realistic and neutral reading of social media sites. In order to do this, we must first talk about the generational differences between internet users based on the concept of “digital natives.”
The Difference Between “Digital Immigrants” and “Digital Natives”:
The issue of generational classification is one of the thorny issues on which it is difficult to reach consensus. Because the classification criteria are based on social conditions, cultural customs, and changes in political and economic conditions, each region has its own classification based on its own standards. But the digital world of the Internet, or the global village as McLuhan calls it, can only rely on its existence as the sole criterion for classification, that is, the social media revolution is the reference point here, so digital generations are classified into two main categories: “digital immigrant” and “digital native.” The first – is the one who witnessed the technical development and the communication revolution and then immigrated to its world and locations (such as those born in the eighties), while the second – is the one who was born and found himself between the real and the digital worlds, so he is worthy of being a digital native, because this form of communication is all he (as a millennial) knows.
To clarify the issue further, I will borrow a famous cinematic quote from the movie The Dark Knight Rises – 2012, when shadows surrounded Bane and he said to Batman in the darkness: “you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Formed by it.” In a similar context devoid of the duality of good and evil, the victor and the vanquished, as in the confrontation between Bane and Batman, we find the digital native saying to the digital immigrant: “you merely adopted the internet. I was born in it. Formed by it.” This borrowed sentence reveals to us the fundamental difference between Internet users in our current era. There is an entire generation of teenagers, both male and female, who grew up in the digital world and were shaped by it, while the rest of the older generations are trying to adapt to it in varying ways. Hence, the anxiety of the digital age arises among immigrant generations. It is anxiety about the consequences of this formation on young people, anxiety about the decline of values and morals, anxiety about the lack of privacy, and other nightmares that threaten the individual and society. But, like all nightmares, it’s just an exaggeration of something that could be valuable.
Is There Anything to Worry About? Yes and No:
In other words, we say that the anxious tone of technical determinist writings that warn us of the dangers of the internet is a kind of exaggeration of problems that actually exist. But the existence of the problem does not justify it or justify its pessimism. Rather, this approach does not result in a correct diagnosis of the nature of the problem and how to treat it, as the negative impact of the internet on attention, for example, is not hidden from the user. But what is the benefit of portraying it as a modern-day scourge? The result is often the opposite, with the gap between generations widening until there is almost no means of communication between them. Here, we go back to the concept of “extensions” to remind us that the digital world is a virtual extension of our real world. The inescapable truth is that we have passed the “point of no return.” This is our life, and the internet is an integral part of it. The formation of the cultural, political and gender identities of an entire generation will take place through the internet, which means that our responsibilities towards the emerging generation have doubled. This does not justify in any way restrictions on them, rather, what we mean is that the space that we must secure for them has doubled in size between the real and digital worlds.
Warning About the “Age Shaming” Slope:
This difficult responsibility falls on the shoulders of “the last immigrant generations” and “the first native generations”, because they have something in common that enables them to communicate properly and effectively, thus setting the goal and destination. It is important to clarify here that this is not an exclusion that carries stigmatizing connotations for older generations, as much as it is a special cooperation between the generations most immersed in the digital world. The Internet is a playground for young men and women, and there is nothing wrong with that. There, they get to know themselves and others, and breathe a bit of freedom, even if it is virtual. However, it represents a refuge for many who have been struck by the harshness of life. They laugh and cry, they fall in love and get bullied, it’s an open playing field for everyone, but most of its visitors are from the younger generation, because the nature of life requires us to return to the real world as we grow older. Sarcasm, challenges, and other digital activities will not maintain their value over time. The concept of “value” in this context is the basic concept around which the importance of special cooperation between “the last immigrant generations” and “the first native generations” revolves. Because the question of the value of a particular digital practice is often trivialized or exaggerated by older generations, how can people who do not see what younger generations see diagnose and address their problems?
Based on what has been mentioned so far, we will present an example of a digital practice that touches on all the concepts we discussed, from “extension” to “value,” in a way that reveals the complexities of conceptual differences between generations, which is the messaging of erotic images via private social networking sites.
(We stress before delving into the issue, that our commitment to a neutral tone in the presentation does not mean encouraging this practice, and our limiting ourselves to a specific aspect does not diminish the importance of the rest of the aspects related to it. We leave it to the reader to examine the religious, cultural and security aspects, because they are outside the scope of the article’s focus.
The Intentionality of The Erotic Photo and its Intimate Value:
In the context of private correspondence, the erotic image is a currency of intimate value, used in emotional exchange within a relationship in its virtual form. These pictures do not gain their value from being sexy pictures that display the charms of the body, rather, because they are a virtual extension of its sexuality, what excites the recipient is not the body itself, but rather its presence in the embodied mind. Meaning, the intentionality of this practice with its sexual extension (from sender to recipient) gives the erotic image an intimate charge that makes it have greater emotional value. However, the practice remains hostage to its virtuality, including the physical frustration of not satisfying the desire in reality, and a threat to the privacy of correspondents with the possibility of their private conversations being leaked.
Because the practices do not have the same value among different generations, we find that older immigrants in the digital world do not view the intimacy of erotic correspondence in the same way as younger natives, which creates a conceptual gap between the two generations that complicates the possibility of communication between them. In cases of digital attacks, such as hacking smart devices and leaking their private contents, including conversations and erotic photos, some blame the victims for their practices in virtual space, ignoring the horror of the aggressor! Thus, the discussion shifts from the importance of working to protect user privacy in the age of the internet, to whether the wife should send her husband a picture of her new nightgown! This is what happens when there is no agreement on the value of practice, the value itself becomes the center of controversy rather than the problems related to it.
Going back to what we mentioned previously, we can discern the influence of technical determinism on the outlook of older immigrants regarding erotic correspondence. As is always the case with this approach, its concerned tone fails to provide an accurate picture of the practice and diagnose its actual problems. This is what prompts us to emphasize the importance of cooperation between (the last immigrant generations) and (the first native generations), because they transcend the value debate by virtue of their generational and intellectual affinity, and by transcending here we do not mean necessarily transcending the normalization of the practice. It may be transcending its criticism, or even warning against it, that is, it is transcending to reach a certain result. In other words, we say that this special cooperation between the younger generations is capable of dealing with the challenges of the digital world if given confidence and provided with the necessary capabilities for that.
The Authenticity of The Embodied Experience:
So, after we talked at length about some of the conceptual tools required to understand social networking sites, and linking them to erotic correspondence as an example of a popular digital practice among internet users, it is time for us to ask the most important question in this article, which will draw for us the dividing line between the real and digital worlds… “What is the nature of the relationship between a thing and its extension? What do we mean when we say that erotic body image is a virtual extension of one’s sexuality?
Let us prepare the answer to the question by first talking about the term “Extension” in the context of our modern life, which includes its use in the field of hairstyles, and means external “hair extensions” that give the hair on the head length and density. Here we say: The relationship of the external hair strand to the head hair strand is an incorporeal extension relationship, meaning that the external hair strand does not grow from the scalp, therefore, it is less authentic, because what is authentic is necessarily embodied.
In the example of erotic correspondence, we find that it is a relationship that is an intentional extension of the sender’s sexuality in its virtual and incorporeal form, which makes it, as an intimate practice, less authentic in terms of experience and less satisfying in terms of desire. Because part of the authenticity of intimacy is that the other person’s body is in front of you and that your body is in front of them, feeling them and them feeling you. This is the ability that is talked about in this context: “the ability to embrace or kiss.” In various other contexts: “the ability to kick, run, pat, throw, etc.,” are actions that require the presence of the active self embodied in the real world. A husband cannot embrace his wife during erotic correspondence, no matter the degree of intimacy and desire between them, because the technical environment for messaging does not support the ability to do so. Here, the boundary is drawn between the object and its extension. Social media sites, as a technical medium and gateway to the digital world, by their disembodied nature, do not support the authenticity of our virtual experiences.
Accordingly, the digital world as a whole is an extended world requiring a different existence, in which the active subject is “connected” to the world, because existence in the real world is through the body (through incarnation), while existence in the digital world is through the network (through communication). The self is disembodied as soon as it is connected to the network, to extend into the spaces of the internet behind its personal accounts while its body remains fixed behind the screen, it thus loses something essential to the authenticity of existence, and with it the paradox of “proximity and distance” is generated. The global village that brings me closer to my friend on the other side of the world does not enable me to shake his hand, and despite watching him prepare coffee, I don’t smell it. Here we say, after a justified delay, that our proposal is concerned with the phenomenological aspect, not the technical aspect of virtual practice. That is, the technical development that will enable me in the future – in one way or another – to smell a virtual coffee simultaneously with the one prepared by my friend on the other side of the world, will remain as a less authentic experience phenomenologically. Because this authenticity requires my embodied presence so that the air can transmit the smell of coffee from the cup to my nose, that is, that I exist where the cup is in the real world.
Behavior = Person x Situation:
When we say that the digital world is less authentic than the real world, we must ask here the question of “extent”, in order for us to understand the size of the differences between them. Because the answer to this question requires a language capable of describing and explaining, we shift from the language of the subject to the language of the object, that is, from subjective phenomenological experiences to objective psychological models. How can we do this? We must first take a psychological model for behavioral process, and then strip it of its embodiment value. Let’s see if the result is a different behavior, and then we describe the extent of originality based on the behavioral difference.
Considering that embodiment is a fundamental and influential factor in behavior and perception, we see that the most appropriate psychological model for us is The Nonlinear Interaction of Person and Situation Process Model by Gabriela S. Blum and Manfred Schmitt. It is a model based on the hypothesis that behavior is shaped as a result of the interaction of person characteristics and situational characteristics, which explains why ten people behave in different ways in the same situation, and why the same person behaves in ten different ways in several situations. Four behavioral elements have been identified that are under the direct influence of specific interactions between personal elements and situational elements.
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- “Activation” as the first spark of behavior, depends on the result of the interaction of the behavioral “requirement” of the situation, with the “minimum” to be done by the person.
Example: When a situation requires urgent action, and the person’s threshold for doing so is low, the behavior will be activated in the blink of an eye, such as a mother hitting someone who tries to assault her child.
- “The Ability” to carry out a certain behavior depends on the result of the interaction of the multiple behavioral “alternatives” in the situation, considering the person’s “tendency” with its motivations, desires, and habits.
Example: The more possible behavioral alternatives in a situation, the ability to act expands and becomes dependent on the person’s internal tendency. For example, the manager rebukes one of his negligent workers instead of punishing him legally.
- “Restraint” and inhibiting behavior depends on the result of the interaction of the “restrictions” imposed by the situation, with the person’s attempts to “avoid” its consequences.
Example: The situation imposes regular restrictions on behavior, which prompts the person to avoid them in order to avoid the punishments that may result from practicing them, such as when a teenager adheres to public morals in order to avoid violations.
- “Predicting” a person’s behavior depends on the result of the interaction of the “selectivity” of the situation with the extent of the “volatility” of his personality.
Example: The ability to predict a person’s behavior becomes more difficult as his mood swings increase and the selectivity of the situation decreases, such as the investigator having difficulty predicting the behavior of a psychopathic criminal.
Here, it becomes clear to us in detail the fundamental role that embodiment plays in shaping behavior, and that once we withdraw its value, as in the case of connecting to the network and browsing the internet, this behavioral processing will change fundamentally to produce different default behaviors.
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That is, the disembodied nature of the digital world does not only change our behaviors, rather, it changes our behavioral treatments as a whole!
The “minimum” is a physiological phenomenon. That is, it is linked to the body and its organs that perceive what is around it, and when the active self is removed from its embodiment in a state of communication, this affects “activating” its behaviors. Also, the hypothetical situations on social media limit the possible behavioral “alternatives”, which in turn affects the “ability” of behavior. What is more important than this and that is the “restrictions” imposed by the virtual space that restrict the body and free its extension to do whatever it wants. It is the blessing and curse of the digital world.
In the real world, behaviors considered suspicious, such as stalking, have become less so on social media platforms. This is due to a shift in the inhibition levels involved in behavioral processing. The constraints that previously made such practices difficult and discouraged people from engaging in them have now been reduced to a simple click online. On a more positive note, virtual space can liberate many individuals from the psychological constraints of social communication. This, in turn, allows those liberated to engage more freely with their peers online and provides them with opportunities to discover and develop themselves
This ease in virtual practice is a double-edged sword, and it also bears something of the characteristics of the “proximity-distance” paradox. A bully can hurt someone as if he were close to him, but in reality, he is thousands of kilometers away. The lover can shower his beloved with love as if she were close to him, but in reality, she is thousands of kilometers away. In all cases, behavioral originality is the victim. How many bullies would not be able to carry out their recklessness in reality, and how many lovers would wish that their beloved had not remained trapped on the screen. This is another inescapable fact as the digital world is less authentic than the real world, and that one day, generations of digital natives will have to migrate to our authentic world.
Last Words
To write an article about social media sites in the age of technological acceleration means writing thousands of words over several weeks without getting far in your goal. The digital world is too big and complex to be understood in this way, it is always moving and always changing. This is what prompted me to focus my writing on general concepts rather than the sites themselves. I have brought the plough, but I did not plow the field, because this effort exceeds my capabilities and exceeds the horizon of my individual vision. I hope the readers of this article will take these conceptual tools and do the hard work, only then can we call social media sites by their names.
T1661
