I have been acquainted with principles of internet safety for pretty much as long as I can remember, largely due to the fact that, since my dad works with computers, he pays more attention to those sorts of precautions than perhaps is usual. Certain things seem like "no-brainers"--the basics, the "why would anyone do otherwise?" bits of advice: in some random chatroom or forum or other function on a random website, don't just give out your personal information (your real-life, or real, information, if you will) to anyone--your real name, your home address, your credit card number, all that sort of thing. --And yet, this advice is evidently not so obvious as one might think, judging by the amount of resources you will find warning folks not to do these exact things! There may not be a sucker born every minute, but there are, at any given time, enough persons sufficiently uninformed to fall for obvious-in-hindsight cons.
And yet, with social media, perhaps our barriers are lowered from the beginning. After all, this isn't some out-of-the-way website with a no-account, unmoderated forum: this is the safe zone! This is where people present their real selves to the outside world! ...Right?
I have never thought of social media as another means by which to perpetrate these sorts of false-identity scams; then again, I have only ever "friended" (isn't it funny how that has become a verb?) people that I have already known for a substantial amount of real-life time.
The question of identity, of self, however, remains, and I find it an intriguing one. Being in control brings a feeling of power; whenever you know something that someone else doesn't, you have the advantage over them. The internet has simply made it possible for us to take our daily game of "act this way around this group of people, act another way around another group of people," to an entirely new level.
We each have the potential to be puppetmasters... Yet, how much are we being puppeteered? Not necessarily on a malicious level, mind you--but if the inclination arises not to divulge certain of your interests to given groups for any reason, then can that facet of ourselves truly be seen as our true self, or just a shadow of ourselves?
I would think that only Nietzsche's nobles, caring absolutely nothing about the opinions of others, would be willing to show the same face to everyone no matter the situation.
I think you make a good point. I want to relate it back to Angela in Catfish. I think social media has become a place for many people to escape to. You mention the feeling of power that it may give someone to lie, to fool someone else. I think Angela may have been in desperate need of feeling a sense of power in her life. The two boys she took care of drained her and she had little in her life except her paintings. I think she really enjoyed being in charge of the relationship she had with Nev and the other Facebook profiles she made. It does bring up a great question of identity. Who is Angela really? I think she is parts of everyone she pretended to be. I want to discard her as selfish and awful, but it's clear that Angela has many more issues that she may try to escape through social media.
ReplyDeleteSocial media is a direct reflection of yourself. It should be taken seriously to the extent that how you represent yourself and go about in your physical, material world should be the same way you manage your digital world. What trust can you put in someone that you have never met physically and cannot look in they eyes and develop a relationship with. You mention the phrase safe zone and how the digital world might be one which is why we lower our protective barriers. For younger kids I can understand this line of thought, for those who have not experienced how evil and nasty the real world can be I can understand. However, for people that are in college and older and who have become more aware of the world they live in, why should you assume anywhere is a safe zone. I assume no trust or relationship with people that I do not know. I have to physically meet them and judge them; I most certainly cannot do that online.
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