Facebook threatens to 'Zuck up' the human race

http://cnn.com/2012/05/30/tech/keen-technology-facebook-privacy/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

by olivercameron • 14 years ago

16 2 14 years ago

friggeri• 14 years ago

    Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the 
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tells us there's a "shift" from an analog 
    world in which our identities are generated from within, to a digital world in 
    which our sense of self is intimately tied to our social media presence.

The way I understand this quote, it's opposed to centuries of sociology/psychology, cf. Aristotle's zoon politikon and Lev Vygotsky's “Through others, we become ourselves.”

My point is, the nature of the influence of others on ourselves has not changed, only the medium this influence goes through is different. And needless to say that this new medium is nothing more than a complement to all others through which we already achieve social presence.

laglad• 14 years ago

I don't buy that identities were previously generated from within. I think that pre-internet, the average person assumed a stronger piece of their identity from family, job, nationality, gang etc. than from their inner convictions. The internet boosts the number of identity groups you can join to a size so great that you need a different outlook to grapple with the madness. Maybe it's a good thing because it's kicked us out of a local maximum where we could arbitrarily settle on who we are. Now, the clouds have cleared and there are vast mountains everywhere.

Facebook threatens to 'Zuck up' the human race

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