Bonjour Athens

Our last week of course introduced us to the concept of the « army of idiots ». I think it is an interesting term, that will help us summarize what we saw in this course.
U. Eco talks about how the « army of idiots » is now, thanks to social media, given the same platform as a Nobel Prize. He means that now we have ways to express ourselves in the same fashion as those who have influence on society : we express ourselves to a crowd of strangers and we have more opportunities to have our voice amplified by others. Nowadays, voicing an opinion is easy, we can create a discussion with a lot of people at any time. But then, Eco turns it a very negative way : he actually regrets this phenomenon. So what does he mean ? That some voices have more validity ? And I understand that a Nobel Prize gets the validity from an academic point of view but then it gets us to a place where only recognized and educated people get to express themselves. And we arrive to the same place of censorship that happens in authoritarian regimes.

Previous to this course, I grew up at the same time as technology. Actually, I was born exactly 3 days after Google ! So I never lived without it, in a sense. And it developed at the same time as me (or MAYBE a bit quicker, but I’d like to think it won’t take long until I reach the same level of fame and knowledge as Google). It shows how my evolution happened in parallel to the evolution of all those tools that we are now used to. In a sense, I feel very lucky because I am part of a generation fo whom a lot of things felt « natural », because it happened at a time when we were eager to learn new things. We grew up with our times. But we all grow feeling like everything around us is « natural », it makes sense. That is why I never questioned the functioning of technology and networks. I just always knew this place existed where I could decide to have a voice, and where this voice might be heard.

If I believe what Eco says, maybe my voice does not have a place. And I say that playing the « devil’s advocate » (even if I hate that saying) because I get what Eco means when he says « the army of idiots ». It is probably not you and me : it is people who are overly ignorant, whose ignorance pushes them to be hateful and sour. But if I directly follow what Eco says, then I don’t have a right to express myself either. I am no Nobel Prize, and my opinions and thoughts are mostly based on my experiences and my surroundings. What differentiates me from the army of idiots ? What makes me more valid ? Or not ?

As much as it gives a platform to people we do not agree with, networks have the advantage of giving platforms to everyone in a fairly equal manner. Theoretically. Of course, there is some inequality, that lies in the problem of internet access, which is difficult and sometimes restricted in certain areas of the world. But if we talk about the population that has access to internet and networks, then I think we can say there is an equal distribution, in theory, of ability to share one’s voice. Emphasis on « in theory », again. In reality, Zuckerberg is one hypocrite when he releases a manifesto about supporting inclusive communities. Because of censorship, a lot of voices are being silenced. Bodies are being censored because of their gender, their expression, their nudity. For example, a lot of networks regulate our beauty standards, by only allowing the nudity of certains bodies. You’ll never see a white thin model being censored on the page of a big brand because she’s almost naked. But other influencers get silenced when they try to show their fat, disabled, non-white bodies, because they try to raise awareness on their right to exist in public space. To synthesize, networks are still a reflection of the inequalities and violences that we meet in real life. The norms are the same, and as much as it has a potential to create balance and to give access to an audience to everyone, it still is as flawed as the society we live in.

So we have that : a system of horizontal communication, endless possibilities of creation and spreading of informations. This system allows one’s to have a voice and a platform, but this access to voice and platform is based on the same discriminations and norms as those that exist in our society. Therefore, if one belongs to a minority, they will struggle to find a space in this system. So we arrive at Castells’ theories : networks connect some people and some institutions, but also disconnects others. And that is caused by globalization. In reaction to that globalization and feeling of disconnect, more resistance to globalization appears, through specific groups, ideologies, values and alternative systems. Is that what creates Eco’s army of idiots ? Is it the feeling of being disconnected, of being forgotten by institutions and networks ? Or, is the army of idiots created by the others : those who feel robbed when minorities try to claim some spaces in the networks that usually isolate and censor them ?
The latter seems accurate to me. In the last few years, we saw a lot of new voices emerging, in two very different directions : in one way, we have the rise of a feminist movement, as well as anti-racist movements lead by powerful black and non-white activists, queer movements and fight for LGBTQIA+ rights. On the opposite way, we have the rise of the conspiracy theorists, the anti-vax movement, and very openly racist groups, who are the ones who lead for example to the occupation of the Capitol after Trump’s defeat at the last elections. So, we have two movements. The first one reclaims a space in the global networks, to gain a platform that they did not have before. Tired of being silenced, they are populations who, thanks to the multitude of voices and experiences that they shared, succeeded in flooding the public conversation with their existence.The second group, feeling attacked by the space conquered by the first group, created in response new alternative discourses and networks to share them. For example, they completely re-invested Facebook, which was abandoned by a lot of users. In the mean time, the progressive social movements invest other medias such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. So it is interesting, in my eyes, because each movement sees the other one as the « army of idiots ». Each of them was born from a feeling of disconnection : one because they were silenced for so long, the others because they felt robbed of their space of expression, that they were dominating for so long.
Those kind of issues and struggles have happened for so long. But now, it happens on large scales because of the timeless time and space of flows. We can now create our specific audiences, groups, communities. We can create self-organization, and communicate like the roots of one tree. We can find our common frequency with people who are like us, like the whales who communicates with each others on specified frequencies that themselves alone can hear as a group. I feel like we find more of a natural organization of our communications and voices. We create tribes, packs of wolves. And it leads to struggles, and sometimes to looking at the other like he is an enemy. But that’s what is being human, I guess.
Maybe that is actually one of the most important point, in my opinion. That everything that we do, how we communicate, how we use and misuse networks : it all comes down to who we are as humans and as a society. The tools that we have in our hands today are the results of decades and centuries of evolution. It is the farthest we have been in terms of evolution, and there is so much yet to come. But everything we create is created to serve our purposes : to serve our need to communicate, to sell, to consume. The bullies don’t bully because they have a cellphone and facebook, they bully because they are mean teenagers. The authoritarian regimes don’t spread propaganda and misinformation because they have the means to do it, they do it because it serves their goals and asserts their power over the population. Fake news are not spread because Facebook exists, they are spread because people feel like they need a new explanatory system for things, because they feel disconnected and lost. At the end of the day, social medias and network have modified our society, but only because we allowed them to. And we still have that same power : we can evolve in the direction we want. We are not dependent on the technology and its evolution, it’s the opposite. Technology will evolve in the direction we chose to go toward.

The question of using technology in the frame of psychotherapy is a question I’ve asked myself before. Last year at some point I was going to a lot of seminars and conferences about psychology, and I saw quite a few interventions on apps to support mental health, or studies to support the building of a technology-supported psychotherapy. Later that year, curious, I made my little researches and found many apps that aimed to influence mental health : mood trackers to assess mood swings, meditation programs to tackle anxious disorders, psycho-education bots… And these apps have their pros and cons in my opinion.

On one hand, we can’t deny that they give new tools to patients, and they allow to be responsible of our own mental health, to be an actor and not just passive in the assessment and treatment of mental illnesses. On the other hand, we have as usual the question of privacy. What if the mood tracker gives the data of the patient suffering from bipolar disorder to other companies, who will target adds on their manic moments, when they are particularly vulnerable to compulsive shopping ? And then, we also have the problem of the autonomy of the patient in their self-diagnosis and self-therapy. The therapeutic frame is useful as it gives a timeline and adapts the processes to the patients needs and abilities. What if the psycho-education program, provided without frame, triggers a crisis in a patient ? What if it leads them to self diagnosing themselves with a disorder and to try to treat themselves by unhealthy means ? 

In my opinion, those questions show us multiple things. First, it shows us there IS a need for technology to mental health, because this kind of care and informations is not accessible to everybody. Because of the costs, the different public health policies in different countries, because also of the stigma related to mental disorders, and the lack of knowledge provided in public spaces. So this need exists, and it needs to be fulfilled, and here technology IS a useful tool. Secondly, it also shows us that psychological care stays a very human activity, and that years of study of psychology as a science showed us the importance of the figure of the therapist, with their expertise, intuitions and feelings. Therefore, I think there is a BALANCE to be found between technology and humaneness in psychotherapy and mental health. 

Will networks and technology contribute to our fall into a dystopia ? To be honest, I am divided on the question. And our online debate also opened me to new answers. 

In a way, I think it is the human nature that will lead us wherever we are going : either in dystopia or utopia. In the end, technology is just a tool in the hands of humanity. Many times, human societies have fallen in dystopia : we can still see it now in some very authoritarian political regimes  that do not allow any freedom and use constant surveillance. Almost a century ago, WW2 showed us that even with way less technology than what we have, it was possible to track people, divide societies and make existence a living hell for a huge part of the population. So in that way, we can observe that we do not NEED technology to be evil and to create dystopia.
Although, it stays a tool, and a useful one. As we saw the last few weeks, internet regulates our access to some kinds of content, our privacy, our intimacy, and our communications. By being associated to an authoritarian government, the world wide web can become heavily restricting and a huge tool of surveillance. But is it the awakening of technology and its evolution that created those instincts in our world, and those tendencies to want to spy on everybody ? I do not think so. Always, governments and powerful spheres have known that the perfect way to manipulate people is by restricting their access to informations and to take over people’s intimacy. And internet makes that process extremely easy… 

This course often sends me back, thinking about how I was taught to use internet. My generation has grown up at the same time as the internet, so it makes sense that we were the first to receive that kind of beta « cyber-education ». This idea of contexts, meeting and crashing into one another, resonates with me and I am happy to now have words to characterize this idea. For us, the youth, it feels like we are jumping from platforms to platforms to escape the adults ! It is simple : as soon as our parents started arriving on Facebook, we all escaped on twitter… Then instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, and now TikTok. We are always finding new spaces to prevent our different circles to collide. I feel like there is always this idea of being way more uncomfortable about our moms seeing our content, than about a random stranger sending us a message. Quite ironic, no ? I guess it is because of how we build a persona, to represent ourselves on social media. And sometimes we know how unauthentic we are : that is something hard to own !

This material also gives sense to this new idea of digital stories, which now exists on every platform ! Creating a kind of ephemeral content allows the suppression (at least in theory) of the time travelling possibility for the audience. Now we can create a time context, but we are stuck between only two possibilities ! The content is either « eternal » (or at least it stays persistent and searchable), or it is completely ephemeral and has a survival of 24 hours max. We are given a choice that is not really a choice… And the sole concept of screenshots makes once again the time context collapse : we can keep proof of anything over time.

The audience idea also is very important. Growing up, I was very much taught about the REAL audience, and the fact that we can not control who sees what we post. As a young person, and especially a girl, I was warned countless times against stalkers, predators, and any person with bad intentions who would easily access my content. However, I was never allowed to ask myself : who am I posting FOR ? Am I posting for my friends ? For people I do not know ? What audience do I want to reach ? When you are not an influencer or somebody who works on social media, it is not a question you often ask yourself. Still, I think it is important, and it is a key question when reflecting on how/why we use social media. 

It is always really interesting to see the parallels between how we function as a society and how nature works. And It find it even more interesting when it is focused on communications and with concepts that are rather new to our species, such as networks. 

The idea of a group of trees connected through the roots is very similar to us, all connected through devices. Although we can chose not to participate in social networking and technology, we are globally very connected to each others. The trees, on another end, can not exist without that web, as it is their main ressource, for communication and survival. It allows them to share their ressources and informations, and prolongate the evolution of their species. Us humans are beginning to be very dependent to networking too. Maybe it is an image from the future ? The idea of being very literally dependent of our network, and them becoming a way of survival for us. Is it scary ? Is it evolution ? 

Also, in the middle of the web of tree roots, the orchids appear. They come and « hack » the system, they disturb a perfect flow of communication. They do not care about the balance and the proportionate sharing of ressources : they come and get what they need, individually. There survival depends on the disturbance of another species’ survival source. It is very human like… Going to a place, taking the ressources and claiming them as ours, without real importance given to who it rightfully belongs to. To me it is a perfect image of most western societies : a group fighting hard to create equality and fairness, and another groupe acting only as individuals and working only for their own profit. 

To become trees, we would need some fungus : a matter that would connect us all.

I really enjoy that kind of thinking. I resonates with the classe on Systems Theory that we had during the first semester… 

It feels like education is often seen (by students at least) as a very linear process that takes one from kindergarten to graduation, or higher studies. Every step of the way is linked to specific contents to learn and specific courses. Like in a video game, it feels like going from level to level, knowing in advance what Boss is at the end of each level, and what reward comes after. And often we learn and work for grades : like a little carrot in front of a donkey. Later, we learn and work for a diploma. There is always a goal that is usually more important that the idea in itself of learning. 

In my personal academic evolution, it was rare that I was encouraged to go and reach out for informations. I mean I had research works, but always with a strong frame of what kind of content was acceptable as a source or not. Never was I encourage to reach out to others to find something interesting, nurturing, that I could reflect about. 

Nowadays, rhizomatic learning is being facilitated by internet : thanks to networks, we can easily access content and ideas from the other side of the world. On a personal level, I feel very educated by my time on social medias : I follow a lot of activists and political individuals who try to pass out as much information as possible on specific subjects. Of course, as I was saying in last week’s post, it is still reduced to «my kind » of thinking and content : the one that is brought to me via algorithms. 

Now that this wonderful networking tool that is exists, education should seize it and say to the student : « go further, discuss, make connections and learn ». But the only preoccupation right now is fake news. It IS true that if rhizomatic learning is based on the sharing of false informations, it is problematic. And it is necessary for learners to know where to go and where not to go, what not to believe. But I think it is also very important for these learners to not be told that the internet is a dark place full of lies, but more like a gigantic network of thoughts and ideas that they need to learn how to navigate. 

I really enjoyed this content. In history classes, we always saw those ages and eras, characterized by one main idea : the stone age, the industrial era, the Age of Enlightment, the Great Depression,… I always asked myself : what is that time that I am living in ? What will kids learn about today, in a century, or two ? What will remain of us ? 

And I guess the answer lies here, in the theories of Castells : we are defined now by a radical change in the structure of our society, because of the networks getting a central place, at the core of our identities. After producing masses of goods, we now produce masses of informations and contents, that we spread and communicate in settings that were never imagined before. Thanks to the Networks, we can reach out to new people and connect based on new criteria. Up until now, we connected with each others on the basis of geographical proximity, being part of the same local community. We could extend our network by physically moving, or finding original ways to reach out further (I know a great-aunt of mine was writing to some soldiers abroad during the wars ! She would also search fro pen pals through ads in the newspaper, which is a way to reach out further). Now, the main criteria is our identity ! We connect based on ideologies, likes,… We see the emergence of concepts such as ‘fandoms’ (people connecting because they are fans of the same artist/content), we also see political movements getting stronger and stronger thanks to it ! The feminist wave that we see now, as well as the #MeToo movement, would not have happened if there was not a way to agglomerate all of the testimonies from women all over the world in specific and dedicated places ! That is the same with the Black lives Matter movement : people living a discrimination, whose voices are silenced because of systemic oppression, can create a mass thanks to networks.  

But just as it allows the creation of new groups, far away from political institutions, it also takes us away from anything different. On all of the social media we use, content is chosen FOR us, and barely BY us. On the basis of few information, the algorithm already know if we prefer cats or dogs, our sexual orientation, our age, our political beliefs, and offers to us content adapted to our identity. Even though it allow us that connection I was talking about, it also disconnects us from others : from voices of other minorities, from people who do not have access to this network, from people who do not think the same as us. 

The short film that we saw made me think a lot. I felt like I had seen this movie a hundred times before… I had never saw this exact one, but I saw so many similar movies. But it never was quite close to reality. I have seen bullying in middle school, high school, and even before. I have been a witness of it more times than I can count. I always felt like a « normal » phenomenon, in the sense that is was deeply rooted in my scholar environment. And I remember professors showing us those kind of little videos, and it always felt so ironic, because those same professors consciously closed their eyes whenever it was clear that a student was being mistreated by a group of others. 

I feel like bullying and harassement have deep roots, in ourselves, in our society, and in the way we represent and treat teenagers. This kind of film sometimes has the message « look out ! It is social media, text, and how you use, that puts you in a place of victim ! Beware of the internet !!». I strongly disagree with that. I saw kids bullying others when I was six and we had no idea how to use a cellphone. I saw kids’ lives being turned to hell because of some rumors, whispered from ear to ear. It really upsets be to see that sometimes the human cruelty is being dismissed as the main cause of this. Technology IS a weapon for the ones doing it. But also : social media and networks are a place where you can always find an ear that will listen to you. Internet is a place where you can find informations on those social phenomenons and how to get away from it. Internet is a place where bullying, intimidation and harassment creates proofs, that can later be used to support the victim’s claims. So I really think it is unfair to point social networks with an accusing finger. 

In the meantime, social networks, technology and internet have opened the doors to new levels of harassment and bullying, such as hacking of personal informations, revenge porn, identity theft… But those are different. They are criminal actions that happen because they are permitted by new devices and technology. While, I think, bullying and harassment happen with or without it. They are being enhanced, as social phenomenon, by our networks and our new capacities to spread informations. 

This course got me a little overwhelmed with content. I liked the opening with 2001 : A Space Odyssey. I remember when I was living with my parents : whenever there was an extract from this movie, or even a bit of the main theme by Strauss on television or anywhere, my mother would just mute it, or change the channel. She could not stand it ! She would always say « this movie creeps me out ». And then, later, I saw the movie and it was very underwhelming for me, as I was « used » to a more…. unrealistic sort of science fiction I guess. To me, the idea of a computer being extremely powerful and getting out of hand was too easy to imagine. That’s probably the bit that scared my mother the most : how realistic this idea had become, from the time she saw the movie in a cinema to now. To me, it was just common sense : artificial intelligences and computer evolve. 

The content we saw today made me think about the differences between my perception and my mother’s. She grew up in the 60s, and now I see that this technology era, that I grew up in, only lasted for like half of her life ! I can not really imagine how overwhelming it must have been to live for 30 years with the idea that computers are far artifacts from the future, and then to live 30 other years of extremely fast development of computers and global technology. 

On my side, I literally grew up with technology. From my childhood with one luxurious computer that was as big as me, serving the whole family, to now being glued to my phone, laptop, e-books, representing myself through social media, entertained mainly by the internet. As fast as the evolution was, it was in parallel to me growing up. Now, networks and technologies are part of my life, but they also are artifacts that smooth and help my relationship with my reality. They ease my relationship to places, with maps and ratings, to people with social media and communication apps, to concepts, with ongoing conversations on any topic on the internet and infinite content. 

My « norm » is placed here and now, built by what I experience. My norm revolves around technology and my current use of it. Will my norm evolve with the times and evolutions ? Or will the times pass by too quickly at some point ? Will I get lost and scared, like my mother who still can not watch 2001 : A Space Odyssey ?

This is the beginning of this new journey, with the course « psychology of social networking ». I am really excited to attend it.

I think i never really paid attention to the way the networks and digital medias unfolded around me and how they influenced my life. This last year, because of Covid, I became overly dependent of social medias and networks. I felt like they were my only link to reality, to my friends, my family,… Now, they still are my main way of communication ! They allow me to talk, learn, and create in ways i would have never thought possible back when i was a child. At the time, i remember thinking how far away things were from me : parts of my family who lived in another region, celebrities i admired, countries i wanted to visit… then with the evolution of social networks in my life, everything felt so close, so touchable : I can see any place in a video, I can connect with people from all over the worl, I can reach content and knowledge from any place and time. Covid changed my perspective and everything shifted : all of a sudden, the « faraway » things felt even closer, because it was all over my social medias (the news, the celebrities and influencers,…), and everything that was usually close to me (my family and friends) seemed so far away. With them, I had to find new ways to communicate and connect, without actually seeing each others.

That is why I am super excited to study exactly how and why social networks have that much impact on me, and on everyone in the world. Even in class, we have a good example : technology allows us to create a web of people, a network, and to connect with each others virtually ! We now learn thanks to the technology, and only in the conditions it allows us to !