Tag: snapchat

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Dec 2019)

Mr Robot: control is an illusion

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by looking at the next UK general election or at the endless denial about explainable algorithms.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this happening with the 2019 turner prize cooperatively shared between different 4 artists.

Meet the real Mr Robot

Ian thinks: Listening to Elliot, you can’t help but be quietly impressed with where his curiosity takes him. Which came first Mr Robot or Elliot?

Lancaster University’s Gogglebox of the future

Ian thinks: Lancaster University’s take of the living room of the future is quite something. Really getting into the meat of the smart home data ethics conversation in a fun, accessible but critical way. Look out for their next research

A more generous world?

Ian thinks: Heard Yancey talk a few times, wasn’t convinced but he making the right noises about values. However still not convinced about Bentoism.

Mozilla explains the possibilities of facial recognition

Ian thinks: stealingurfeelin.gs is in a similar vein to do not track, Mozilla expose the effects of facial recognition which the big corps hide in their EULA’s. One reason why I’ve never willingly used snap chat ever.

Are we all to blame for the state we are in?

Ian thinks: I quite like rushkoff’s post-rationalisation, but more importantly his call for us to be adults and make things right.

Roar for the public-interest technologists to unite

Ian thinks: Technologies for the public benefit against asymmetrical power systems that lead to the weaponisation of technologies against vulnerable communities.

What obligation do social media platforms have to the greater good?

Ian thinks: If we are talking about the mainstream ones, then its got to be a big fat zero. How many state their principles and actually back it up with yearly accountability and transparent reports?

Password patterns

Ian thinks: Our passwords say so much about ourselves and its time we stopped using them when possible. Time for the alternatives.

Where the human race needs to be

Ian thinks: Umair’s thoughts about turning money back into life is spot on, as he points at the problems in the metrics we have regarded highly for so long.

Life isn’t lived, through the end of a filter

Snapchat photos of author of the vice piece

Interesting piece from Vice about Snapchat camera shots, replacing standard photos. I tend to put snapchat in a similar category as Instagram which I’ve written about previously. I picked out some of the highlights…

Writer Arushi feels similarly, and has written about the way Snapchat has started to make people view themselves. “I’ve found myself becoming dependent on filters to validate my appearance in selfies on more occasions than one. Honestly, it scares me because that’s so screwed up,” she said over Twitter DMs. “We’d rather have a digitally obscured version of ourselves than our actual selves out there. It’s honestly sad, but it’s a bitter reality. I try to avoid using them as much as I can because they seriously cause an unhealthy dysphoria.”

“This behavior supports the vision that a social body—self objectified—is more relevant than the real felt body.”

Plus some questions about self-objectfication

New Girl

Dr. Giuseppe Riva, a professor of communication psychology at the Catholic University of Milan, told VICE that social media activity promotes self-objectification. “This is particularly true for Snapchat and Instagram, which provide a mirror-like vision of young women, which is also altered and shared,” he said. “This behavior supports the vision that a social body—self-objectified—is more relevant than the real felt body.”

Those taking Snapchat selfies aren’t just experiencing the effects themselves. Talullah, from Kent, described how men were starting to believe that Snapchat-filtered photos were accurate portrayals of the people in them. “Some guys I speak to say stuff like, ‘You don’t look like your Snaps,'” she explained. “It’s like, ‘Dude, I’m not walking around with a headband of sparkly stars around my head.'”

These apps are too new for any proper scientific studies to have been carried out on the potential long-term consequences for some users. But Dr. Riva flagged eating disorders, alongside body dysmorphic disorder, as possible effects. “Self-objectification—thinking about and monitoring the body’s appearance from an external observer’s perspective—is the largest contributor to both the onset of eating disorders and its maintenance. This is what we discovered in our research,” he told me.

I mentioned on a work slack how much I find people who use Snapchat and Instagram filters on dating profiles close to deplorable. It sounds harsh but I feel like they are deliberately trying to deceive (consciously or unconsciously).

Of course I find dating sites partly responsible for encouraging people to connect their instagram accounts, in the hope they can ram-raid another pool of personal data. The whole thing feels misguided and maybe irresponsible. Another thing I read shared from a colleague at work, might start to explain how these things are held up and thought to be a good idea.

…mathematics, engineering and computer science are wonderful disciplines – intellectually demanding and fulfilling. And they are economically vital for any advanced society. But mastering them teaches students very little about society or history – or indeed about human nature. As a consequence, the new masters of our universe are people who are essentially only half-educated. They have had no exposure to the humanities or the social sciences, the academic disciplines that aim to provide some understanding of how society works, of history and of the roles that beliefs, philosophies, laws, norms, religion and customs play in the evolution of human culture.

The problem is the rest of us are just ignoring the “disconcerting sociological phenomena that are embedded into the very nature of today’s social media platforms” or we can’t be bothered to think deeply about this all? Although as I’ve said before, there is a massive industry wanting to keep the thinking that way.

https://twitter.com/RealMoseby96/status/855165277985804289/

Suddendly the term “disconcerting sociological phenomena” seems a lot more apt…!