(summary)
This article is very well, written and surprisingly deep in the point the writer is trying to get across. It is about the way that we represent ourselves – also called “self representation” – today versus how we have represented ourselves in the past. The biggest difference being technological advances over the last 500 plus years, but it is a lot less boring than I thought it would be. It is, in fact, very interesting. The writer compares having self portraits painted, which was popular for hundreds of years, until the invention of the camera, and even then being able to SEE yourself while you are taking the picture is even newer yet with the invention of front facing cameras and then those cameras subsequently being added to our smart phones, giving us the capability to edit and choose the way we are seen in some cases. And the over-all pretense of the article is explaining that even though the way we express and represent ourselves has changed, in some cases drastically, the meaning behind it and the reason we do it has stayed pretty much the same. In some ways, technology makes it easier for certain people to represent themselves, and in other cases it has the opposite effect. And then there are some people who think that the use of technology is mis-representational altogether.
(some key points and main ideas)
- 3 distinct modes of self representation: Written, visual, and quantitative
- Quantitative representation – representing ourselves with numerical value.
- Visual Self representation – representing ourselves visually, through photographs and things of that nature
- Written self representation – (My favorite) Representing ourselves through words and the things we write
- Selfie – A picture taken of oneself with a front facing camera
- Social Media – Websites and apps that allow us to create and share content
- The use of digital technologies to “see” ourselves, even though “seeing” one’s self has always been a part of our culture.
- Technology has made it easier to document yourself
- Self-representation can me a good method of self improvement
- Social media and blogging are the modern day diary, journal, and memoir.
- The text we read on social media represent real, living people today, not only celebrities and people of great importance.
- Writing/sharing photos allows us to SEE how people represent themselves instead of just reading about it.
- The things we post on the internet are not merely words typed or written from far away, the words and pictures are part of a conversation.
(commentary)
I guess I am just a little confused as to if this article has a singular purpose. It seems to go pretty in depth on the way we represent ourselves and how we use technology to do so, but to what end? The problem is, we don’t know yet. 100 years from now they can be writing articles titled: “How Blogging Ruined our Civilization,” haha, I severely doubt it, but, hey, I have been known to be wrong a time or two. And this is merely speculation and throwing ideas around since, in reality, I am only on chapter one. I am also a college freshman and would never claim to know how self representation effects us in our daily lives nearly as well as you do, if at all. I was, however, extremely fascinated since, while I am not SUPER old, in the general sense, I do remember growing up with a significant chunk of the technology we have today. Reading about how we have been using self portraits, and diaries, and numbers to represent ourselves for hundreds of years, was particularly interesting. The comparison of having a self portrait painted and snapping a selfie, Ha! Rather than sit for HOURS and be stuck with it whether you liked it or not, we can now edit it before hand. It really made me think how you implied that we have so much more control over how people see us and how that in and of itself is changing us. For the better? Or for the worse? I will just have to wait for chapter 2…
Two sides of the fence 