MediaPsyched.com

It is not surprising that maintaining all your social network “friendships” can be a time-exhaustive routine. Just how far can you cultivate an online friendship when there are dozens or hundreds of others waiting in virtual line for your attention?

So what can you one do to escape the pressures and tedium resultng from the desire to have a large group of friends?  When you just just can’t take it anymore and have no desire to share your life with all these online acquaintances, one option is to commit what is being termed “Facebook suicide” - or terminating your social networking site.

Although it’s impossible to estimate exactly how many people have “deactivated” (the site has yet to release figures), there are a growing number of Facebook suicide groups on the site. (One, the Facebook Mass Suicide Club, encourages members to “cancel your account before it consumes you. Join this group so we can do it together!” So far, 143 people have joined.)

Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), says: “Building a Facebook profile is one way that individuals can identify themselves, making them feel important and accepted. But this can lead to disappointment once people realise how insignificant their online existence really is. Not only are online friends not necessarily real friends, they can turn out to be people you don’t wish to know at all. I’m not surprised that those who feel their virtual life is unsatisfying commit online suicide. I really think we make a mistake if we hope to find our collective raison d’être via sites such as Facebook.”

Others have said that they prefer to cultivate their real life friendships and that they realized they needed to get a “real life.”  Everything has a life cycle and now we see that the quest and the subsequent time commitment for having multiple virtual friends naturally leads to a desire to step away from the demands and a desire for simplification. It’s not surprising that these suicides are becoming more frequent.

I hadn’t planned on writing about Chris Crocker because it seems everyone else has already written something about him. But for those you don’t know who Chris is, Chris is a 19-year old boy still living with his grandparents in the mountains of east Tennessee. He creates videos on YouTube and has finally hit the bigtime with a video (”Leave Britney Alone”) in which he is shown having a nuclear meltdown about Britney Spears’ abysmal descent into self-destruction.  (I still cannot bring myself to believe he isn’t just having some sarcastic fun rather than being a distraught Britney-fan.)

It is now being announced that Chris, because of his videos, has been signed for his own reality show. So the YouTube virtual star is now a reality star.  See, in todays’ instant media environment anyone can be a star if you just create enough drama. 

A parody of Chris’ rant has already been posted to YouTube.  It’s even funnier but the guy performing is already on tv!

At first glance this article on the etiquette of using a laptop or other device in business meetings does not fall under the realm of a media psychology topic.  But I am going to speak from experience here…stay with me.

The article focuses on attendees in a corporate business meeting and their use of a laptop while people are speaking.  Not for note-taking or relevant access to info needed in the meeting but for conducting outside business and personal communication and web surfing these people deem is more important to their lives than the meeting.  The ugly head of “me” raises again. The idea that if a person is not interested they can use their time for something that interests them is very self-centered. 

Back when I was travelling internationally for my employer, I was amazed at the obsession of people answering cell phones and PDAs.  I was based in a US office and the majority of managers were expats from other countries - I was the lone US born female.  I would sit in meetings and watch as these guys would attempt to show their importance by obsessively interrupting and ignoring the person running the meeting by giving priority to the device.  Completely clueless in corporate protocol.

Rudeness is part of it.  You can’t teach some people good manners.  But the proliferation of the expectation of having every environment as we want it is narcissitic.

I am out of the loop nowadays for the young workers evidently:

Laptops in meetings are also becoming fashion accessories, especially among employees in their 20s and early 30s. Their PCs have stickers like those of a high school binder: snowboard products, or geeky sayings like “My other PC is your laptop — I’m a hacker.” There are political bumper stickers and all kinds of things that show off their interests, their image, their sense of humor.

Do I really want to look at and be exposed to the individuals’ beliefs, thoughts, etc. in my work environment.  It’s bad enough to have to read car bumper stickers…but now having the read the backs of laptops?  Me, me, me.

I’ll close my rant today with my recollection of a very famous corporate titan’s words years ago as the cell phone became ubiquitous in our business lives.  Someone asked him why he didn’t carry a cell phone.  His response was to the extent, “Well, if it’s that important they will call back. I don’t have to answer just because someone is calling.”

Just about every scenario seems to have been distorted into a reality show.  MTV’s new bi-sexual dating reality show is evidence that reality show subject matter has been pretty much exhausted.  Tila Tequila, who describes herself as bipolar (a serious psychiatric condition also known as manic-depressive),  is infamous for having the most number of “friends” (more than 2 million) on the social networking site MySpace.com.

Tila identifies as a bisexual.  The show’s plot will have 16 heterosexual men and 16 homosexual women vying for her undivided attention. An executive vice-president of MTV, Tony DiSanto, exclaims:

“The show is a rollercoaster ride of drama, conflict and emotion, busting stereotypes and challenging the norm—proving that the rules of attraction are made to be broken [my bold/italics].”

This statement holds more weight and gravitas than it first appears.  Our society is continually bombarded with the blurring of the norm.  In this case, exotic off the wall scenarios (girl-on-girl makeout sessions, bitch fights, a lesbian fighting a straight guy over Tila’s attentions, etc.) will divert attention from the show’s intent to normalize the sexual behavior.

Continued exposure to a stimulus can deaden the response.  This over the top, disgusting format is an attempt to deaden any moral opinion or response from the audience. Sadly, though, the audience of this type of show probably won’t - and more so are incapable - consider the moral aspects of such a prurient exhibition.

Do I hear fiddles?

I slammed the baby videos that are supposed to produce the next Einstein, questioning the effects of video images on the neurological development of infant brains.  However, I have a completely different opinion on programs that are being developed for the older adult’s cognitive abilities as is discussed in this NYTimes article. Although the benefits have not been scientifically proven (yet),

recent research in neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to change in response to information and new activities — shows that brain cells and new pathways continue to develop throughout life. A 2003 study found that people older than 75 who danced, read, or played board games or musical instruments faced a lower risk of dementia.

As I was conducting research with an elderly population for use in my dissertation, I had the fortune to meet a blind 97 year old woman who could run circles around me.  Each night, as she waited to fall asleep in bed,  she would perform complex multiplication formulas in her mind as a way of keeping her brain sharp! This was a person using common sense and so in touch with her mind and body that she knew what could benefit her mind.

An additional benefit for these programs is that they may serve as an engagement activity for those persons isolated at home - thus preventing mental deterioration from a lack of stimuli.  For an elderly non-Internet user, the comfort with the computer the individual develops through using these programs could lead to a desire to jump online.  Once online, these isolated people can have a whole new world open up to them. Online human contact can counter the physical isolation. 

I discussed the other day the incomprehensible behavior of the parents who sacrificed their children to the upcoming CBS reality show “Kid Nation.” Now some of the details of the agreements the parents had to sign are starting to leak out. What has our society come to when a parent is willling to sell their minor child away for a shot at tv fame?

In return for letting their little precious have a shot at reality fame, the parents greedily signed on the dotted line of a 22-page contract basically turning their child over to strangers.  All for $5,000.

The parents and the children agreed not to hold the producers and CBS responsible if their children died or were injured, if they received inadequate medical care, or if their housing was unsafe and caused injury.

Now this is where is really gets insane… 

But while such agreements might be standard for adult participants in a reality show, it also takes on a different tone when the minor and the parent are being held solely responsible for any “emotional distress, illness, sexually transmitted diseases, H.I.V. and pregnancy” that might occur if the child “chooses to enter into an intimate relationship of any nature with another participant or any other person (my bold).”

So who is “any other person” on the set if the only kids on the set are the participants!!!! Adults! So these parents pimp out their kids to an uncontrolled environment, acknowledging that they take responsibility if any other person (read “adult”) impregnates a 12 year old girl or transmits HIV or assorted STDs to their 8 year old! What if a pederast preys on the 15 year old boy?  No problem since the fees have been paid in exchange for silence. What goes on in Kid Nation stays in Kid Nation.

This is insanity.  On the parents’ part and on CBS’s part.  The parents pimp their kid so they can say “my kid’s on tv” and most likely in the process transfer the idea of celebrity onto themselves.  Now that’s being media psyched to the worst extreme!

Before naming his child, Mark Pankow checked to make sure [the child’s name] hadn’t already been claimed. “One of the criteria was, if we liked the name, the domain had to be available.”

Parents determining the name of their child on the availability of a web name domain????? This has to be to be one of the ultimate representations of the self-centered, attention grabbing ,”look at me” aspect of the web.

So the new trend is to set up websites for your children so that everyone can go to the site and see everything about the wonder child!  Let’s remember that this will be a bonanza for pedophiles shopping for new targets. After all the warnings about not using your real name and identifying comments on MySpace and the other social sites, these parents are actually promoting their children and all their contacts and personal details! What are they thinking?  Oh yeah, anything to get you to look at me!

Technology is changing faster than we can write about it. It won’t surprise me in the least if by the time these babies can type on the keyboard, it probably won’t be a keyboard we will be using. And the seeds of narcissism that was planted in the young ones will be full blown and we’ll be having to deal with these nuts out in the real world.

CBS Television has a child reality show debuting this fall called “Kid Nation”.  Controversy is already brewing about the ethical implications of letting 40 children all between 8 and 15 establish their own society.  25% of the children were under age 10! What type of parent would send away their child to such an unstructured environment? The developmental gap between an 8 year old and a 15 year old is gigantic.

“Who is ultimately responsible here, the network that dangles the $20,000 prize in front of these parents or the parents who have allowed or encouraged their children to move forward with this situation?” asked Matthew Smith, chairman of the Department of Communication at Wittenberg University in Ohio and editor of “Survivor Lessons: Essays on Communication and Reality Television.” “Obviously, the situation wouldn’t exist if CBS didn’t say, ‘Come, but don’t bring your parents.’ But also, the parents, after I’m assuming reading lengthy legal documentation from CBS, still went through with it and said, “Go on ahead. I think little Suzie or Johnny can be fine for a period of 40 days without me.’ Even when I say that aloud my eyebrows start to do funny things.”

Again, it is necessary to look beyond the surface of the concept and into the motives of all involved.  Are the parents exploiting their children for a glimpse of fame?  How does the visit to contrived reality affect the child once back in their anonymous real reality?

Also, it will interesting to see the response of the critics on the social strata promoted in this series.  The children are assigned to “upper class”, “merchants”, “cooks”, and “laborers” based on the results of competitions.  So the show encourages and awards the upper class members and denigrates the laborers. I am surprised on one has jumped on this aspect of the show yet.

He may not be a psychologist, but Dennis Prager has simple common sense.  He has an interesting opinion article on the overstimulation of our children:

Today’s young people have the ability to experience excitement more than any generation in history. Outside of school, excitement is available almost 24/7. MTV is exciting (MTV has done far more damage to this generation than has the tobacco industry); video games are exciting; the nearly all-pervasive sexual stimuli are exciting; MySpace (largely a human cesspool) is exciting; getting tattooed is exciting; piercings are exciting; many pictures and videos on the Internet are exciting. The list of exciting things many children experience is as long as there are hours in the day.

All this excitement in their lives bodes poorly for the future happiness of millions of American children. Real life, let alone daily life, will seem so boring to them that they will not be able to enjoy it. And more than a few of them will opt for lives of constant excitement, often in ways destructive to themselves and others.

This observation is very important. Our technological advances -which do produce some fantastic, wonderful results - can meanwhile be programming our children’s behavior Pavlov style.  Eventually, unless there is some outside stimulus, the child  may be incapable of functioning or responding.  The effects of online written communication are readily evident in the inability of even college students being categorized as literate.  At our local community college, if I recall correctly, 70% of the entering students require remedial composition…but I would bet that almost 100% text message fluently.

One other comment about the reference to MTV and the effect it has had on our society.  Last night I was watching a rerun of the 1991 “Cape Fear” remake with Robert DeNiro.  This presentation had comments throughout the movie in a bar at the bottom of the screen (remember “pop-up videos”?).  During the pivotal scene between the stalking, sociopathic adult DeNiro character and Juliette Lewis’ naive, unconsciously sexy 15 year old, the kiss that results is one of pure evil and violation.  How appalling to read in the notes that MTV nominated that scene as one of that year’s “Best Kiss” scenes! Is this another effort to “train” our children to accept any behavior no matter how inappropriate?

Gosh…if I only had the readership of the Wall Street Journal!  Exactly the topic I posted yesterday - the ill effects of online Second Life affairs - was the topic in today’s WSJ! Read this article!

This is serious.  People are completely fabricating their self-images and investing their emotional and psychological essence into fantasy. Proof are the alter-ego avatars they create for themselves.  ”Living in a dream world” used to be a derogatory comment about someone!

The moral costs of this virtual free for all are incalculable.  This is a topic that will be exploding - unfortunately with mostly negative results.

By now you probably know that I am not wild about Second Life.  I have come to consider it an escapist exercise and the more I observe of it the stronger my conviction becomes.  As with any effort relying on getting people to spend money, the limits must constantly expand to keep the hook in the participants.

An article in today’s NYTimes discussed the trend of designing, building and decorating homes in Second Life. Interesting in that is gives people a creativity that perhaps finances doesn’t permit in real life.  However, what startled me was the references to marriages - and divorces and remarriages - that occur in Second Life. Various quotes:

• The two, who are married to other people in real life, met in a Second Life club, hit it off and were married six weeks later in a Second Life ceremony — a more or less common occurrence (as are Second Life marital spats and Second Life divorce) that often occurs with the knowledge and consent of real-life spouses.
• They met while she was still with her first Second Life husband and became fast friends, then married shortly after her “divorce.”
• For his part, Mr. Roy, like many real-life spouses of virtual bigamists, seems unworried by his wife’s extramarital marriages. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” he said. “You are a completely fictional person in Second Life.”

Well, the characters may be fictional but are emotions fictional?  Doesn’t the effort to create virtual relationships not need real emotions behind them?  What occurs in persons who channel their emotional efforts toward a fictional existence and character rather than to the humans who are alive around them?

If someone is in an actual human relationship, I cannot see how dating, getting married and having sex with your partner (married or not) in Second Life can be considered anything but a form of emotional adultery. 

Not surprisingly, the article just ignored the ramifications of this moral and cultural affront.

The fine line of the Internet.  In China, the government is sending children “addicted” to the Internet to a summer camp in order to “wean” them off their addiction.

China has a tenuous relationship with the Internet, primarily because of the lack of ability to control what the population sees and hears. The government will also have patrols looking for minors entering Internet cafes.

There is good and bad in unfettered access to any type of information being at our fingertips.  But the social implications for change within restrictive regimes are to be watched closely as countries attempt to “control” their citizens.

Continuing with Andrew Keen’s book “The Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture”….on page 161 Mr Keen addresses the virtual Second Life phenomena. Again, on the surface Second Life sounds fun: creating an avatar and creating identities and creating an alternative life.  For the visually driven person it is a dream.

However, as with anything there is a darker side:

And because, in true Web 2.0 fashion, Second Life is virtually unregulated and unsupervised, it has become a channel for all kinds of social and ethical vices. Though there are (largely unenforced) rules against inappropriate behavior in public (virtual) spaces, users can act out all of their most base or prurient instincts in virtual privacy.  For 220 Linden dollars, one can even act out virtual rape fantasies; options include “rape victim,” “get raped,” and “hold victim.”

Delightful.  I wonder if those who are so active in Second Life, especially those channelling their real dollars into play money (another way to mask the reality and pretend it is just a game and make-believe) comprehend that they are supporting and condoning this type of behavior by their participating in a virtual society that permits this behavior?  Or is rape between two avatars a private choice that society as a whole should not judge?

I am feeling my efforts are redundant! So much of what I envisioned addressing on this blog has been succinctly addressed in Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur. Mr. Keen is a Silicon Valley pioneer and had a cultural awakening during an exclusive retreat at Tim O’Reilly’s (who coined the term “Web 2.0″) FOO Camp.

Back in June, I first became aware of this book after reading, what I felt, was a rather condescending review in the LATimes. This was enough to grab my interest because the reviewer attempted to minimize Mr. Keen’s efforts. Since then I have come across other references.

The book was shorter than I expected but an interesting read that can be finished in a day or so non-stop.  It is impossible for anyone to write without some of their personal ideology seeping forth, and although I may disagree with Mr. Keen on some issues, he has written a very even-keeled treatise on the negative implications of Web 2.0 and not trumpted his personal views in an effort to win converts to the right or left.

All media psychologists, as well as anyone who has even heard of the Internet, need to read this book. Mr. Keen’s recurring point is that Web 2.0 allows the “amateurs” to become the expert.:

What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment…(we) are being seduced by the empty promise of “democratized” media.

I am not Chicken Little in promoting this book.  But as media psychologists, we are under an obligation to consider all aspects of what affects behavior, good and bad.

I leave off today (I definitely am writing more about the thoughts considered in this book) with a quote in the book attributed to Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman PR, the world’s largest privately owned public relations firm:

In this era of exploding media technologies there is no truth except the truth you create for yourself.

Psychologically chilling!

This article on CNETnews.com is on how universities are now turning to the “me” part of Web 2.0 in order to secure commitments from accepted students and once enrolled keeping the students engaged.  On the surface there are many positive aspects in utilizing an additional mode of information exchange. 

Good teacher education stresses the need to provide learning in three different modes: visual, audio and tactile.  This ensures that the learner grasps the content in the method they are most proficient. Online experiences can incorporate all three.

However, something troubles me with this obsession with tailoring everything to Web 2.0 formats.  Web 2.0 breeds narcissism.  It is a very singular experience -despite the allusion that one is networked into a huge group of others- and the “how I want it” aspect feeds the narcissism of self-importance.  The environment has become one of narrow definition determined by the user.  The benefit of any group activity or process is ignored for the desire to create individual self-realities.

I am finally finishing the book Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen.  I will be discussing this book over the next few posts.  Mr. Keen critiques the negative parts of the social implications of Web 2.0. Even if a technological development has positive aspects, don’t we still need to consider at what point the detriments outweigh the benefits?

Found this article about the online site MyDeathSpace. The article goes into detail so I recommend reading it. This site is basically the virtual graveyard for pages of dead MySpace users.

Is the perusal of this site one of a healthy awareness of our imminent end no different than reading the local death notices in the newspaper?  Or does it take it past a respectful acknowledgement to one of voyeurism enticed by the titillating headlines?

If anything, an interesting reminder that, once online, our photos and words exist forever beyond our death.  And that once we die those pages can be manipulated by others.  In our zeal to exist online, do we need to consider the arrangements for our virtual funerals?

One of the obstacles to online written communication has always been deciphering the emotion behind the words.  In face-to-face discourse we are able to discern much of the message from the other person’s mannerisms, facial expression, and voice inflection. 

Now comes ABC: Avatar-based communication. It expands from text-only based chat to incorporate an avatar to relay the missing body movements, etc.

I believe there is a vast opportunity for research focused on the psychology of avatar development and use.  Does a person’s true self come forward in avatar use?  How true is communication content when delivered by avatar? Is ABC content authentic or posed communication?

All questions pertain to diminishing line between our personal realities and our virtual realities.

When someone mentions support for the parent of a newborn, it is easy to immediately think of the new mother and the struggles she may be facing.  However, an Australian man - realizing he was completely unprepared for life with his newborn - developed a DVD specifically for fathers.  In an upcoming second DVD, Troy Jones profiles the different struggles and and challenges of 60 fathers as they face various situations including the death of their wife in childbirth.

I think that a DVD is an excellent medium to use when targeting a man.  It is easy to carry on a trip, privately watch on a computer at home or inflight, and provides a combined video/audio experience. Being able to hear the experiences of their fellow fathers can alleviate the support void that men tend to have since they don’t talk among themselves or read self-help books as readily as women tend to do.

What a great solution to an overlooked problem! Naturally there’s already a U.S. television series in the works!

A study regarding the link between viewing Internet child pornography and actual child molestation has been pulled from being published in a peer-reviewed journal. The study’s results indicate that up to 85% of those convicted on Internet child porn crimes have actually performed some form of sexual abuse on a child.

This is startling and relevant.  The Internet has facilitated the business of pornography - both adult and child - and it is now astronomical in terms of numbers of viewers and the dollars spent.

But why are the results of such an important survey being withheld?  It appears that because some offenders may not be molesters, then the safety of society needs to be forfeited.  The 15% hypothetical chance trumps the 85%.

Yet others say that the results, while significant, risk tarring some men unfairly. The findings, based on offenders serving prison time who volunteered for the study, do not necessarily apply to the large and diverse group of adults who have at some point downloaded child pornography, and whose behavior is far too variable to be captured by a single survey.

The words I bolded frighten me.  The relativism evident in this statement is chilling.  Why would anyone outside a police investigation be downloading child porn? Again, it is an indicator of our society’s continued dilution into a pool of no censure on any behavior. True, one survey does not necessarily establish a truth. But in this case the results DEMAND attention.

It only makes sense that the playground languages we used to create ingroup-outgroup memberships have transformed into online argots.  One of most prolific versions of online argot is the language developed for the Lolcats phenomenom. Lolcats are online postings of cats with statements in large white font text using LolKitteh language.

Besides being entertaining (and indicative of wasted talent and too much time on people’s hands), this Internet meme has become an interesting example of language evolution.  The author of ICanHasCheezBurger.com has written an extensive lesson plan on learning to write LolKitteh as a second language.

Although a long discourse, David McRaney’s take on the development of online argots such as LolKitteh speak is extremely interesting in the dynamics involved in establishing  ingroup online speech and how it can eventually expand into the common spoken word. McRaney states:

The great thing about all of this is how we can see new languages forming out of a new medium, and since the pace is abnormally fast, we can watch it evolve over weeks instead of decades.

There will always be ingroup-outgroup dynamics whether face-to-face or in an online community.  With the rapid expansion of Web 2.0 activities ingroup techniques such as LolKitteh will emerge as a natural response to creating communities.