Somewhere Between Inspiration and Compulsion: Response to Emily Gould

Emily Gould opened up her life to the criticism of the world while making a living by publicly criticizing others. Her job at Gawker along with her personal blogs opened up Gould’s entire life to an ever increasing audience as she became more popular at Gawker. Her posts were filled with details about her personal life and nothing seemed to be too private to be shared with her readers. The led to a great deal of strain in her life as posting personal details led to increased readership, but damaged her interpersonal relationships. Eventually Gould couldn’t handle the public figure she had become through blogging and resigned from Gawker.

Gould made mistakes in what she posted about herself and didn’t know how to deal with the repercussions, but she seemed to be aware of the consequences of having her life on the internet all along. She put herself in the category of “people who make their livings in public” and was a justified target for public criticism by her own standards. When she was being grilled by Jimmy Kimmel on the Larry King Live show about the “Gawker stalker map” Gould explained that that there was a shifting definition about what is considered a private space and what is considered a public space. She went on to say that no one should expect to be able to walk down the street without anyone noticing what you are doing.

After reading this article I felt the need to Google myself and see what came up. It wasn’t much, mostly just stuff from my high school’s website like, a list of graduates, and a literary magazine that I worked on while I was there. I still thought it was kind of weird that these things had turned up simply because I hadn’t thought of myself as a “Google-able” person. I have relatively minimal interaction with the internet and what personal sites I do use have the privacy settings turned on. The things that I had found about myself weren’t things that I had control over being on the Internet.

This makes it seem to me that it is impossible for people to have absolutely no Internet presence anymore. I have never had the impulses that Emily Gould describes and yet I can still be looked up on the Internet. Even people who have no interest in the Internet probably at least have an e-mail account for their job and possibly even a listing in an online employee directory that can be found. It seems that in this sense that the private sphere is becoming smaller and smaller every day.

People don’t have to ask you if they can write about you in their blog, they just do it and it can make a lot of people feel uncomfortable. I know that if I wrote every stupid or mean thing I have ever heard my boyfriend say and put it on a blog where anyone could see it our relationship probably wouldn’t last much longer, but there would also be nothing he could do about it. Blogs, along with most things on the Internet, show one sided views of people and can cause people to have unfair perceptions of others. Looking someone up on the Internet is never the same experience as getting to know them in person and yet it seems that the image that is presented on the Internet can have a large amount of influence on a person’s life. Employers, family members, and complete strangers can Google your name and judge you on what they find.

However, while you may not be able to keep yourself from being found on the Internet precautions can be taken to keep the public self that is displayed on the Internet from damaging the person behind the screen name and avatar. People’s personal lives along with personal information should be assessed before they are written about completely uncensored on the Internet. Writing about how much you dislike someone can be just as damaging as posting your address and phone number all over the Internet.

The Variety Revolution: Response to Virginia Postrel

Everyone has walked through a crowded grocery store aisle and been surrounded with product after product. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by all the bright labels, but have you ever stopped to be grateful that there are so many options? Virginia Postrel argues against the social critics claim that we are offered too many choices by saying that people limit their options to better suit their needs so that it is not overwhelming and also that there should be a lot of options to suit everyone’s individual needs.

When Postrel is going through Barry Schwartz’s line of reasoning from The Paradox of Choice, I found myself very much on her side. Schwartz’s insinuation that ill-fitting jeans would be a better choice than the hundreds of options that are available now was almost too much to bear. When I read this I thought that clearly Schwartz doesn’t understand what it is to be a woman and how finding the perfect pair of jeans is like finding a precious gem. To me, saying that it would be better to have something that is not right, but is close enough, is giving up on trying to be better. This applies to everything in life, not just what you choose to buy.

I will admit that I am a creature of habit when it comes to some things, but I also love looking for new things to try as well. For example, I order the exact same sandwich every single time I step foot in a Quizno’s , but I love trying to find new things to do around Tulsa. I think that everyone has this mixture of habit and adventure that keeps life interesting without getting bogged down by every single choice that is made in a day.

No one wants to do the same thing every day, but no one wants to do a different thing ever single day either. It would be too hard to come up with something new to do every day and would become more of a chore than something that would be enjoyable. The habits that people form keep the vast amount of choices we face in a day from being overwhelming, but breaking away from your habits is what makes things fun because they are out of the ordinary. People should have the option to stick to their habits or try 30 new flavors of jam when they feel like it.

Postrel’s argument sums up my feelings about the subject of choice well. Freedom is not being overwhelmed by too much to choose from, but rather being able to pick the same thing over and over again or being able to change careers several times. If there are no options you will never know if there is a way you could improve your life or make what you have seem that much better. Eliminating options eliminates a way that people can find happiness whether it is through the scent of a bar of soap or choosing where to live.

The Loss of Deep Reading Capabilities: Response to Nicholas Carr

With each passing year I find the Internet becoming more and more a part of my daily life. I check my e-mail constantly, love my online banking account, and think that Amazon is one of the greatest things ever created. And I am one of the most minimal Internet users I know. Maybe I just hang out with a bunch of nerds, but the group of people that I spend the most time with is part of an Internet culture that goes completely over my head. They are constantly on elite websites, constantly reference jokes I have never heard of, are online gamers, and appear to speak an entirely different language.

I couldn’t even begin to explain how many times I have been sitting in a room where someone makes a statement and everyone else in the room cracks up while I just sit there having no idea what happened. The Weezer music video for “Pork and Beans” was filled with YouTube references and I was almost shunned for needing it to be deciphered and not getting why it was funny.

However, any one of those people can focus on one of those things better than I can focus on anything period. While my boyfriend plays a video game on his computer for five hours straight I will start three homework assignments and not finish any of them. This seems to undermine Nicholas Carr’s argument in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that the Internet has changed the way that people think so that we can no longer concentrate for long periods of time. Carr says that people no longer have the ability to deeply read something. We scan through articles, jump from subject to subject, and when forced to read find our minds wandering after only a few pages.

I think that people still have the ability to concentrate on things for long periods of time, but that this concentration has shifted away from the print based world that Carr had lived in. This has changed because the Internet has allowed us to be able to understand things without having to deeply read them. This may sound horrible, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. Instead of reading the same article ten times to maybe understand its concepts, the Internet can instantly supplement anything and provide you with more information than you would ever need on a subject.

As our generation has moved from the Oregon Trail to the World of Warcraft there has been a steady growth of concern over how this is affecting the mind. Critics like Carr seem to be fearful of this change and worry that the apparent loss of interest in print media will cause the dumbing down of our culture. I think that the Internet actually furthers the capability of people to gather knowledge and makes it more accessible than ever before. In my experience the use of the Internet does not cause people to have less focus. I think that there is too much variance between the attention spans of people to be able to narrow it down to a single cause.

The Impact of Branding: Response to Naomi Klein

In No Logo, Naomi Klein presents the idea that we buy things for their label and the ideals that come with that label, not for the actual product. While, I do think that this is a strong argument about buying something strictly for the brand I think there are a lot of other factors that go into this decision making process. I think that brands are one of the best physical examples of the mental shortcuts that we create for ourselves. Everyday our brains are overloaded with choices. We don't have the time or desire to sort through every available option so we choose what is familiar to us or immediately stands out to us. Brands allow us to immediately identify products and not have to sort through all the options.

There are so many different kinds of one item that it would take forever to make a list of the things I like and dislike about each one. Contemplating every grocery store purchase would take forever and sounds highly unpleasant. I buy what I know. Klein doesn’t seem to assess the simple task of habit in shopping. In fact, she says that consumers are actually the ones who are branded because they have the desire to be seen as an individual in a mass produced world and use brands to promote their identity. This implication that we buy things simply to promote an image of ourselves leaves out that some people buy things just because they like them regardless of other people's opinions.

I never realized until I came to college and moved away from my family that I continued to buy all the same brands of things that my parents had bought. I buy the same toothpaste, the same laundry detergent, and even the same dish soap. Not only did I continue to do this, but I never even stopped to consider that I could buy something different. It isn’t so much that I desired to be known as someone who buys Tide, Tide is just all I’ve ever known. According to Naomi Klein, this probably would make me a brand faithful, but I couldn’t tell you any sort of ideals that I feel the company represents. I don't care that the type of toothpaste that I buy may be putting out an image of myself. I really just want to brush my teeth.

Naomi Klein has very interesting ideas and ways of getting these ideas across. However, they are not unique and have flaws. Brand loyalty and belief in company ideology do not always go hand in hand. Also mass production is not inherently evil. Sameness in products can provide a comfort level for people because they know exactly what they are going to get for their money. Granted these may not be life or death decisions, but brand loyalty does allow more time to be spent on things people enjoy or find important rather than choosing a type of toilet paper, and I think that this is a good thing. Maybe even a necessary thing because I find the solutions that Klein attempts to give are highly impractical. Klein is very cynical about the use of brands, and ignores how they could be used to actually promote her beliefs of fair wages and better treatment of employees.

I don’t think that we could or should turn away from our current form of consumerism. With a little bit of research it is easy to find out what companies are doing bad things and should be avoided. Brand loyalty can play a part in this by being loyal to a brand for their good works and fair treatment of employees.

Stress to Success: Response to Thomas de Zengotita

I’ve always thought of myself as having taken the faster paced, more challenging course through life. I spent my junior and senior year of high school enrolled in the IB program taking extra classes and doing extra projects along with working at a bookstore and attempting a social life. Ever since then mass amounts of free time feel unnatural to me.

Thomas de Zengotita would blame those feelings on the media and the effects it has had on the American mind. His article “The Numbing of the American Mind,” discussed the overstimulation of the mind that has been caused by modern media and different ways of coping with this. According to de Zengotita, one way that the numbness of our minds is shown is through the busyness of our lives. He says that “over-scheduled busyness might seem like the opposite of numbness, by it is just the active aspect of living in a flood of fabricated surfaces.”

I’ve always been a busy person. Even right now I’m planning on completing my bachelor’s degree in three years. I always had this general conception about myself, but after reading this section of the article I began to realize that almost everyone I know is like this as well. It requires serious effort to track people down and coordinate schedules to meet up for the simplest things. One of my good friends goes to Yale and in about the past three days we’ve left each other about five phone messages each after continually missing each other’s calls.

I do think that to a certain extent the media is a cause of most people’s overly scheduled lives. The ideas of success that are presented by the media cause people to attempt to have the idealized lives that they see on TV. People are now easier to access through the media as well and this constant contact with others leads to busier lives. However, just because people are busy it does not mean that they are numb. De Zengotita also believes that since people act like everything in their lives is an emergency, “stress is how reality feels.” Stress has become an overwhelming feeling in life, but the best moments in life seem to come in the moments when you feel that stress has subsided at least for a while. I always tend to remember the results of my work more that the stress it caused as well.

Of course, this may just be my numbness talking, but the relaxing moments after a stressful experience make the whole thing worthwhile. I wrote two papers in a day last week and it really didn’t seem so bad after it was over and I enjoyed not having anything to do for at least the rest of the weekend. I think that this somewhat negates that people have become numbed by too much media presence because there can be breaks in the stressfulness of life if you allow yourself to have them. Just knowing that there is a difference between being stressed and being relaxed shows that people aren't constantly stressed or numbed to life. While the media does impact the busyness of people’s lives, it is still up to the individual to decide just how busy they want to be. People can control just how numb they want to feel and while the media can be tools to aid people in this they do not direct people to numbness.

24 Hours Without the Media...

I decided to attempt my media free day on a normal weekday where I had to work and go to class to see how much I use the media in an everyday setting. The first thing I did that day was turn off my alarm clock that is really my cell phone. This was a very necessary breech of no media cell phone rules. I haven’t used a normal alarm clock in years, and while it wouldn’t be difficult to obtain and use an alarm clock this brought to my attention that I never even consider buying one. I assume that my cell phone will serve as an alarm clock and had never thought twice about it until now.

My second infraction of the rules of using my phone came just moments later when I went to call my boyfriend to serve as his alarm clock. I didn’t realize until after the phone call was over that I had used speed dial to call him. This led to an ongoing back in forth in my mind over whether or not land lines even have speed dial capabilities. Eventually I decided that the simple fact that I had no idea was probably enough to make the point that I can’t even remember the last time I called someone from a land line with the exception of making phone calls for my job. Even when I am at my parent’s house I use my cell phone and not their land line. I am completely addicted to my cell phone. I feel weird and almost paranoid when I leave without it. This especially occurs when I am driving. I feel so weird not having a cell phone because anything could happen and it would be harder for me to get a hold of people if my car broke down or something. I would rather have a phone in my pocket that will only work in emergencies rather than have a phone with all the latest technology sitting in my room while I am out. This constant feeling of needing to be able to be in contact with people leads to my next problem of text messaging.

I am a text messaging addict and I didn’t even know it. All day I kept having impulses to text one of my friends about something random that I had seen or done that day. The more I had the impulse to do this the more I realized that the majority of it was completely unnecessary. It was really difficult for me to refrain from texting people all day long, but I did manage to do so. I hadn’t realized that aside from face to face communication the most significant way I communicate with people on a daily basis is through text messages. It is just so easy and convenient that it has almost become second nature for me to text someone rather than call them.

However, this also led me to think about how I make the decision to either call or text someone. Normally, I only call someone (with the exception of people who are close to me like my family or boyfriend) if I think what I have to say will be too confusing or too long to text. When I realize what I have to say is too long to text it usually keeps me from telling the person whatever I have to say because I re-evaluate it and realize it can either wait until I see them or not be said at all. I really have no idea what this means. It could be that text messaging has more appeal because it is more of a background mode of communication so that you can be doing several things at once rather than only talking on the phone, but I can’t really explain my hesitance to call people in general.

I honestly had too much homework the day I decided to be media free that I did not miss television that much. I was actually almost thankful that I wasn’t allowed to watch television so that I could get everything done that I needed to get done. I like television and I am not afraid to admit that. If I hadn’t had so much other work to do that required me to be out of my room this probably would have been really tough for me as well.

Another thing that felt really weird to be missing from my daily life was the Internet. Normally when I am working on things and get a little stuck on a word, or I am unclear about an idea that is being discussed, I use the internet to clarify those issues. I used an actual dictionary for the first time in a very long time and was annoyed about it. Not being able to check my e-mail began to frustrate me after a while too. I was somehow convinced I would be e-mailed something important and would miss it even though that hardly ever happens. I had to tell myself that anyone who would e-mail me something important would also be able to call me if they really needed an immediate response. I really have no idea why I am so attached to my e-mail. Anything else that was on the internet I was okay with losing since I knew it was only temporary. A major thing that did help me to not use media resources for twenty-four hours was that I knew it would only be for twenty-four hours. It would be much harder to give up using media without knowing how long I would be disconnected from the media.

I expected this exercise to cause me to see the media’s role in my life in a new way, but instead it caused me to see myself in a new way. I wasn’t focused on how much of an absence there was in my day, but on how little I actually needed the media that I thought I did. I am perfectly capable of picking up the phone to call someone instead of texting. I am also capable of picking up a book instead of using the internet. The problem is that it is much more convenient to use modern media and has now become habit that would be very hard to break. For the most part, I don’t believe that today’s media environment is a negative thing to participate in. Modern media provides so many connections to the outside world that people receive a much more broad experience than they would without it. Print media is limited by how much it can print and electronic media can be endless. This is not necessary, but it is not bad either.

Going without media for a day caused me to have more focus on what was in front of me, but I couldn’t forget what could have been in front of me. Overall, going without media caused me to feel isolated from the world around me. Even when I was around other people they were allowed to participate in a world that I was not and it was impossible to forget. Modern media has become inescapable because even when you are not using it the simple fact that you could plays a major role in (at least my) everyday life.

My Media Autobiography

As a child I was a complete bookworm. I avidly read through any series aimed at little girls. I worshipped Nancy Drew and my copy of Ella Enchanted looks as though it has survived multiple tornadoes. I would just sit there and read the same books over and over again submerging myself in their magical worlds. I still read the same books over and over. I have had several people tell me how strange this is, but every book I own (which is no small number) has been read through several times.

Television was never a big thing for me as a child though I will admit this has changed greatly over time. When I was younger I would just watch whatever my brother was watching and the Friday night line up on ABC. It saddens me to this day that no one shows reruns of Boy Meets World anymore. I do love television now though. I have a handful of shows I hate to miss and like to have the TV on in the background just to be on. TV series being released on DVD is one of the greatest things ever in my opinion. I’m not even going to pretend like I didn’t watch the entire series of Arrested Development and Buffy the Vampire Slayer this summer. I am also counting down the days until the next season of Lost premieres.

My siblings and I were completely obsessed with Disney movies. I think we had at least 50 of them and I still enjoy most of these. My sister and I are an unstoppable Disney Scene-It team. I watch a ton of movies now and have a pretty wide variety of tastes when it comes to that. Call me a cliched college student if you want, but I think Wes Anderson is a genius. And yet I have also developed a new found appreciation for bad 90s movies. Think anything with Freddie Prinze Jr or my personal favorite Drive Me Crazy. So bad you can't help, but love it.

The one thing I never got into was video games. When I came to TU last year a group of my boyfriend’s friends were shocked that I hadn’t played a video game in over five years and only barely did then. I just don’t really enjoy them. I don’t spend vast amounts of time on the internet either. I check my e-mail, Facebook, online banking, and class sites, but other than that my poor computer is mainly used for paper writing and Spider Solitaire.

I honestly can't even imagine not having media sources at my fingertips at all times. Besides the entertainment value I couldn’t imagine not being able to be in touch with someone instantly. I hate going anywhere without having my cell phone with me. I suppose in a way it is the fear of the unknown that is pushing me in that direction. It seems entirely too strange that anything could happen and I would have no way of knowing for a while longer than I would like. Being in touch with the people I love and knowing what is going on in the world around me is very important to me.