Wow, this first chapter was intense. There was a lot of information to take in so
it was extremely overwhelming and hopefully not a reflection of how information
is going to be distributed in the chapters to come. However this was a good preview to the
various theories and concepts from wide array of scholars he is going to use to
answer the question "Who am I".
I learned that there is an ongoing understanding of where and who
"I" am and came from. The
relationship of society and people have so many interpretations which can be
tied into why and how people use the various forms of social media today. For the purposes of this class and tying
concepts into social media, I found it very interesting in some scholars'
answers on how they answer who we are.
For example, Durkheim, answered that "modern individuals are selves
characterized by their place in the division of labour: by their skills,
interest, specialisms, talents, functions, knowledge, jobs, professions and
social status. It is these things that create a sense of self-identity..."
(pg 19). You can directly tie this into
such social websites like Facebook and LinkedIn where individuals display who they
are and what they do. These ideas relate
to social media because these outlets of social media are ways for people to
communicate and display who they are and what they are about. Essentially it is a form of answering and
displaying their perspective of "who I am" and the different selves
they are socially.
Hey Rob,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how intense this chapter was, it felt like a crash course in philosophy. I definitely found it overwhelming as to how many different interpretations of self there are. However it makes sense that the idea of self and its relationship to society would have so many perspectives because it is one of man's most important question's and has been consistently asked for centuries. I like how you showed the connection between Linkedin and Durkheim's idea that we gain self identity through what we do as our job. I also agree that many social media sites are ways for us as individuals to answer the question "who am I", by freely giving away our personal information to strangers to help them get to know us. Overall, good post.
Hello Rob! Excellent post! I completely agree with you and AG that this was definitely a challenge to read. Not being much of a reader, I had to go over a couple of pages once or twice. When reading your post about social media and how there can be so many interpretations it got me thinking. With all the cultures continuously mixing and diversity becoming so popular, no wonder it is difficult to answer the question, "Who am I." Social media however may or may not help this problem. Instagram and Twitter for instance are two different social websites that offer two different things. Instagram is a picture based website where as Twitter is a status based website. Like you said, two different interpretations or ways a person can describe who they are. But there are other things in society that make it difficult to say "who I am". Today people are seen by what kind of car they drive, the piece of paper called a degree, their job, and what is on their Facebook or Twitter. For instance, I am conflicted between what I am trying to become, what my parents think I should do and what society thinks.
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