In her essay " Making New Media Make Sense,"Nancy Baym writes, people, technologies, and institutions all have power to influence the development and subsequent use of technology (Baym,12). As technology continues to evolve and inspire, more and more social platforms dictate our culture, how we complete our daily tasks and how we celebrate victories and occasions. I would like to expound on the influence of social media and the power of anonymity through Reddit, a fairly new social media platform.
For anyone not quite familiar with Reddit, Reddit was founded in 2005 by partners, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. The website is used for social news and large discussion forums (specifically named threads) with varying subjects and has been used by countless social figures as a place to connect with their fans through Q&A or announcements. Reddit's forums creates a space of anonymity and safety, you discuss almost anything with quite a bit privacy at your disposable. Threads such as "Escorts of Reddit what was your first day of work like? "or "I've been playing the same game of Civilization II for 10 years," chronicling one reddit users progress in the world Civilization. There seems to be no stopping Reddit now.
Numerous studies and conversations brought on by new technologies continue to question how ours minds are developing whilst gluing ourselves to a screen. The fear of future generations deteriorating due to a lack of traditional interacting, learning and absorbing of information hasn't dissipated quite yet. Baym also writes, Electronic messages are frequently portrayed as vacuous (Baym, 5). Depending on your use of the definition; vacuous in terms of electronic messages, Reddit is most likely littered with them. However, threads such as "I am Barack Obama- Ask Me Anything" which invited any reddit user to ask thoughtful and challenging questions to the former POTUS or the sad and beautiful reddit thread, "Soon I will Be Gone Forever", which a user inspires us with living our lives to the fullest, anonymity is unnecessary, we don't need to be close to empathize with another human. These example can't be defined as vacuous uses of the internet, Reddit has empowered the use of anonymity and created a safe space for majority of its users.
This platform alone shows how outdated the definition of a social network site truly is. This invites and celebrates anonymity, builds online relationships and in no way promotes a profile. Ms. Williams, the tennis superstar, announced her engagement to Mr. Ohanian on Reddit, the website that claims in a Complex article the label, "the front page of the internet"(Bromwich). Serena Williams announced her engagement in the I said I do thread on Reddit, she has made it a point to release her information to strangers, strangers who loves her fiancees company and strangers who most respects her accomplishments as a tennis player.
Baym's analysis on the introduction to new media platforms for human beings is right on the nose. Resistance to the new and innovative has always played a part in evolution. As we continue to create simplistic and intuitive technologies to fit with everyday life there will be the feeling of losing ourselves and arousing suspicions of a loss of productivity, sensitivity and communication. We must realize these are not lost but mature over time, just as we have as a species.
Source Citations
Photo: www.reddit.com
Sources Referenced
Hahn, Jason Duane. "The 14 Most Legendary Reddit Threads." Complex. N.p., 30 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Feb. 2017. <http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/04/reddit-posts/>.
Bromwich, Jonah Engel. "Serena Williams Announces Engagement to Alexis Ohanian, Reddit’s Co-Founder." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2016. Web. 5 Feb. 2017. <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/sports/tennis/serena-williams-engaged-alexis-ohanian.html>.
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