BCM110

How social media has affected the way we approach forming face to face friendships and relationships. Has it affected our social skills positively or negatively?

Social Media is engrained into our everyday routine. Each day, we scroll through various platforms such as Instagram, twitter, or snapchat, interacting with friends online whether old or new. This constant use of online platforms to engage and communicate with other individuals online has affected our social skills when it comes to face to face interaction. Whether it’s a positive or negative change is up for debate.

There are many aspects of Social Media that can cause us as individuals to approach new friendships or relationships offline in a negative way. This is mostly surrounding the aspect of ‘online dating’. Online dating has shown to have had a negative impact on the way we approach forming new relationships as ‘social norms’ have now changed from offline to online. It was normal for generations before us to meet their partners in an organic way. Meeting at a bar, grocery store, or sports game for example. All of which still occur, but as dating shifts online, these situations are growing sparse. “Conventional notions of romantic relationship initiation hinged upon an individual’s chance encounters with other single adults in his/her geographic proximity ….. Online dating sites break free from these conventions by providing individuals with “increased information about a wider pool of potential partners than usually available in face-to-face encounters”(Ramirez, Bryant Sumner, Fleuriet and Cole, 2014).

It’s easier for people to get a ‘feel’ of what a person is like online before you are required to take the relationship offline. However, as Spencer Palmer Christensen states, “… social media users express certain elements of themselves that they want others to see. In other words, the user manipulate the preferences of their profile to build an online identity”, demonstrating there are dangers to this preferred form of communication.

I’m curious to know… has social media and online dating affected the way you now approach forming new friendships or relationships face to face, in a positive or negative way? For example, has it made you feel more comfortable approaching people or more uncomfortable? #bcm212

— taryncastle (@taryncastle1) March 12, 2021

However, the counter argument, supported by students response to my twitter poll, demonstrates the idea that social Media can have a positive impact on a social skills. In fact this was supported by an article ‘A Study on Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Society‘, demonstrating social Media can help teens and adolescents social skills. Social Media has allowed students to engage online before they are required to meet in person. Access to media platforms such as Instagram, or twitter has provided individuals with the opportunity to get to know others, get comfortable, and be yourself online, which overtime allows for an easier transition from online to real life. As discussed by Prabhakararao Sampathirao in his chapter ‘Social Media and Social Skills’, in ‘The International Journal of Indian Psychology, instead of developing vital social skills needed for face to face conversation and face to face interaction, starting as children, individuals are choosing to communicate over technology and social media. As positive as these online interactions can be, “A balance needs to be found between online chatting, tweeting, video chat, and actual face to face interactions” (Prabhakararao Sampathirao, 2016).

Using this opportunity to research this topic, I want to gather information from fellow students, drawing from personal experiences and opinions, and determine whether Social Media has had a positive or negative impact on our social skills and communication when taken offline. In current times, this topic hasn’t been more relevant to society and students. Throughout 2020 individuals were forced to rely more heavily on social media and online platforms as forms of communication.

References:

Akram, W. and Kumar, R., 2017. A Study on Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Society. International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, [online] 5(10), pp.351-354. Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Waseem-Akram-19/publication/323903323_A_Study_on_Positive_and_Negative_Effects_of_Social_Media_on_Society/links/5ab1c064a6fdcc1bc0bfefef/A-Study-on-Positive-and-Negative-Effects-of-Social-Media-on-Society.pdf&gt; [Accessed 17 March 2021].

Prabhakararao Sampathirao., 2016. Social Media and Social Skills. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, [online], Volume 3(issue 4, No.57), Pg 57-64. [Accessed 19 March 2021].

Ramirez, A., Bryant Sumner, E., Fleuriet, C. and Cole, M., 2014. When Online Dating Partners Meet Offline: The Effect of Modality Switching on Relational Communication Between Online Daters. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(1), pp.99-114. [Accessed 15 March 2021]

Spencer Palmer Christensen., 2018. ‘Social Media Use and Its Impact on Relationships and Emotions’, BYU scholar sArchive, Pg 5, [Accessed 17 March 2021].

I’ve thought about this statement long before I thought of it as a possible research topic. I thought about it because I have seen the changes, as small as they are, in the way our generation approaches friendships and relationships face to face, as opposed to generations before us. Generations before us met their partners or friends in real life situations… at a bar, grocery store, a football game even. And yes, these still occur, but as social media and online dating grows, these face to face interactions grow sparse and are becoming rare.

We have these romanticised ideas of how we want to meet our potential partners. However, new social norms have switched our interactions from face to face to online. Dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble have become extremely popular as well as the use of simple social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat, which overtime, have all become ways for individuals to “slide into others dms”. Hence, why I found this topic interesting and my curiosity only grows.

However, I wasn’t sure how if I wanted to focus solely on online dating or whether I wanted to focus on social media in general. So I’ve reached out via twitter to settle this debate.

If I were to research how the internet has affected the way we approach face-to-face friendships or relationships… would you be more interested in online dating or social media in general? #bcm212

— taryncastle (@taryncastle1) March 17, 2021

I also reached out via twitter to ask other students doing BCM212, whether they found online dating/social media affected them positively or negatively. The answers surprised me as personally, I believed it to have a negative affect. However, 75% of students that voted, voted for ‘positive’.

I’m curious to know… has social media and online dating affected the way you now approach forming new friendships or relationships face to face, in a positive or negative way? For example, has it made you feel more comfortable approaching people or more uncomfortable? #bcm212

— taryncastle (@taryncastle1) March 12, 2021

These results will help me determine what path will be more interesting to research as well as what direction I take my research project and my questions. Although, at this stage, I am leaning towards focusing solely on ‘online dating’ as it is what I find more interesting.

As Anabel Homnack quotes in her article ‘Online dating technology effects on interpersonal relationships’:

“Online dating has altered how people make decisions about romantic partners.
Before the time of online dating people could either speak on the phone or face-to-face,
now there are numerous options including text messaging, chat rooms, social media
interactions and video calling”

References:

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=engl_176

It’s been a while since I last introduced myself…2 years I believe so I thought why not provide an update.

Hi, I’m Taryn. I’m currently in my third year of uni and completing my 2nd year of subjects… gets a little confusing when you study part-time. I’m studying a Bachelor of Communications and Media and majoring in Global Screen Media. I hope out of this course that I can find a career in editing documentaries or get involved in the film industry in producing and editing.

As part of our introductory blog we were asked to think about who were before uni and one thing I thought you uni would be like before I attended. Honestly, I had to think hard about what I expected from uni as a year 12 who had no idea what was in store for herself. So I did some research into my old blog posts and my original introductory blog in my first year. I remember seeing university students and thinking how much fun they would be having. I don’t know why but I had this preconceived idea that uni was super fun and involved a lot of socialising. Which, don’t get me wrong it does, but socialising nowadays more or less involves studying or homework.

I asked my older brother, who didn’t go to university, what he immediately thought of when he hears the words “university student”. He’s response was “someone who wants to study their interests more in depth”. Which to me, is very true. The reason I chose to attend uni was to further my passions of making film and teach me new and exciting ways of doing so.

-T

Blog with references and final film: https://tarynctimeline.home.blog/2020/11/10/media-vs-reality-the-attention-economy/

When we hear the term “attention economy”, there are so many ways it can be approached. For me, I see the attention economy as the global competition within the entertainment industry for consumer attention. Larger corporations such as Netflix and YouTube are continuously in battle for our sole attention to our screens, so much so that consumers are now addicted to what we see in our media or on our screens. It hasn’t always been this way. Access to media recently meant a drive to the local DVD store so you could hire a few movies for the night. Now, our media is right in front of us all the time. Access has never been so easy. “The growth of entertainment has produced intense global media competition in which victory lies in momentarily capturing the fleeting, fickle attention of consumers” as stated by Michael J. Wolf. As consumers, we are no longer fulfilled with one source of media. Our brain is now craving fulfilment that we can no longer concentrate on one thing. For example, now instead of giving a movie our sole focus, we are scrolling through social media or apps like Tik Tok’ to gain more fulfilment. We are continuously looking for a way to distract us from reality, so much so, we are no longer living in the moment. Watching our media while we do simple tasks of cleaning, cooking, or socialising with others.

Taking inspiration from the recently released documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’, I decided I wanted to test out this information by creating an experimental film. As stated by Jonathan Haidt,” A whole generation is more anxious, more fragile, more depressed. They’re much less comfortable taking risks…. The number who have ever gone out on a date or have any kind of romantic interaction is dropping rapidly. This is a real change in a generation”. Another quote inspiring the film was one by Tristan Harris in his Ted Talk, “I want you to imagine walking into a room. A control room, with a bunch of people hunched over a desk with little dials. And that, that control room with shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people”, to which, I incorporated it into the film.

This experimental film titled ‘Media vs Reality’ was intended to represent (without stating) this idea of the ‘attention economy’ whilst also creating a sense of uncomfortable familiarity for the audience. Using a projector, the main idea was to create a scene demonstrating a sense of overconsumption as an individual stands with videos projected on top of her. Side by side, two sets of projections are shown; one, with real life footage, and second, a compilation of videos from popular and well known Tv shows and movies. The process began with rough storyboarding and research into appropriate sounds. Claire De Lune by Flight facilities, also known as the song for the newest Telstra ad, had a perfect monotone and continuous beat that when matched with the quote from Tristan Harris’ Ted Talk, fitted cohesively with the fast-paced videos. After compiling videos from my own Go Pro and camera, and footage from Netflix and Stan, I put them together ensuring each clip was fast, but easily recognisable, creating the comparison between chaos and familiarity.

The editing process consisted of trial and error. Seeing what worked and what needed to be fixed. With some feedback from fellow classmates, such as adding an extra element of chaos through a bright, graphic t shirt, or using the unintentional eye closing in drafts as a metaphor, allowed me to see from the audience’s perspective.  So, my friend Chloe Sheppard modelled a bright orange graphic Tee from Japan, and stood in front of a projector, once with her eyes closed, and another with her eyes open. The final film came together swiftly using the Adobe Premiere Pro on the university computers. With research into split screening, I came across this article by motion array that showed me how I was able to play around with the settings, so I didn’t have the films directly next to each other. This is where the video truly came together.

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The final product holds many hidden messages open to interpretation. Incorporating the feedback to have Chloe’s eyes open and closed, allows the audience to play round with the meaning. Is she closing herself off from living in the moment? Is she closing herself off to these memories? Or has she truly forgotten how to live in the moment? Her eyes are open and she’s smiling. Is this where her sole focus is? Is she not closing herself off?  The two clips weren’t displayed directly next to each other, instead, placed in separate corners, causing more space between the films for the eyes to wander. A tiny detail added was the millisecond gap between the start of each scene. This was strategically done in order to minimise the risk of a rhythm occurring between the two clips. Because, if a rhythm were to occur, it takes away from the overall chaos of the film. With chaos, the eyes wander more, and it becomes harder for us to focus on both.

As an experimental film, gathering feedback was necessary to create an overall conclusion. Was the film successful? At the beginning, I hypothesised that with each chaotic element introduced, the audience will try to focus on both, but slowly lean towards a specific scene. Well, part of that was true. After showing this video to friends, family and the class, each person’s answer varied. A couple people stated they focused on the real-life moments because they wanted to see something new or a “peak into my life” as one said. Another said he focused solely on the Tv shows and movies because it was familiar to him. However, majority of the class I showed it to agreed that they tried to focus on both but was drawn back to the tv shows and movies because they saw something that was familiar to them.  They found it hard to resonate with the real-life moments.

In reality, this stays true. This film demonstrated our reality, that, we are so addicted to our media we are forgetting to resonate with real life. We use media as distractions and with the entertainment fighting for our attention and serving this romanticised and cliché ideals to us on a silver plate, it comes easy to us. We are given the freedom to use our media as frequently as we want, as we have access anywhere and everywhere with just one swipe.

References:

Kane, L., 2019. The Attention Economy. [online] Nielsen Norman Group. Available at: <https://www.nngroup.com/articles/attention-economy/>

Wolf, M., n.d. The Battle For Your Attention. [online] strategy+business. Available at: <https://www.strategy-business.com/article/10169?gko=b88f0> \

Netflix, 2020, The Social Dilemma | Official Trailer | Netflix,

TED, 2017, How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day | Tristan Harris,

Flight Facilities, 2014, Flight Facilities – Clair De Lune (feat. Christine Hoberg),

Motion Array. 2019. Learn How To Split Screens In Premiere Pro CC (2020) | Motion Array. [online] Available at: <https://motionarray.com/learn/premiere-pro/split-screen-adobe-premiere-pro-tutorial/>

Instagram URL: https://www.instagram.com/calmingcore/

At the start of this semester, Lili Gallagher and I, banded together to create an anxiety page. Our aim was to curate creative content that contributed to the aid of establishing coping mechanisms and creative outlets for people who suffer with anxiety just like us. In our pitch we stated we wanted to use Instagram as our main platform, utilising the many features of Instagram to grow our audience, as well as, our knowledge on the different ways to cope with anxiety at home. As 2020 has been a year of long hours spent indoors, our minds can run more rapid than usual, and not having a right outlet can make situations much worse than they could be if we were aware of the wants and needs of our mind. As people who have anxiety or cope with extreme stress, we were forced to learn new ways of coping at home. So why not share? And in the process listen to the experiences of others?

Using our own personal experiences for others personal gain.

Over the process of our anxiety page, there were major events that occurred in order to create much needed changes or advancements to our page. A big one discussed throughout this semester was our audience perception. In order to fully understand our audience, we needed to switch up our perspective of how we perceive them. We curated a starter pack that expressed the overall feelings and emotions of our audience, a common feature in all our lives, and the reason we will connect with our audience.

Our next challenge was to determine how we could utilise Instagram in order to grow our audience. After some experimentation with story engagement in comparison to post engagement, we concluded creating frequent stories with insights into our own journey reflected more positively than posts on their news feed.  This event allowed us to see the importance of opening up and how it can influence the actions of our audience and their willingness for feedback. We established a natural feedback loop with sharing an experience or asking a question and receiving open and honest feedback in return. This also allowed us to see that being as honest and vulnerable as we can be on this page provided the most feedback and engagement. This is what worked for our page. We started off with polls to allow our audience to begin to feel comfortable to share, then we expanded to a more expressive format by asking questions they can answer fully instead of just pressing a yes or no box.

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Our next big change was introducing ‘Thankful Thursday’. This was introduced to encourage the process of reflecting on the positives of the week instead of the negatives despite how awful and defeated we may feel. It allows our audience to share what they’re thankful for, without us sharing it on our stories, so at least they reflect for 5 minutes and can see in words what they are thankful for. As we continue this each week, our responses have been slowly increasing which is a big positive!

We still have so much to work on, from increasing comment interaction and account reaching, as well as, more frequent posts on our page, we are still growing as a little community. Our content is just beginning to expand as we are now bringing our content back to the creative aspect we were originally aiming for, from painting to cooking.  

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References:

Audio:

• Claire De Lune by Flight Facilities, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKlBTmylvqY&list=RD11hUZLWyXC0&index=5&ab_channel=FlightFacilities
• Quote “I want you to imagine walking into a room. A control room, with a bunch of people hunched over a desk with little dials. And that, that control room with shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people”, Tristan Harris, Ted Talk, ‘How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C74amJRp730&t=14s&ab_channel=TED

Netflix:

• Gossip Girl – Season 1 episode 4 & Season 2 episode 1
• Gilmore Girls – Season 5 episode 7
• The Office – Season 6 episode
• Veronica Mars – Season 1 episode 18
• The 100 – Season 1 episode 1
• New Girl – Season 1 episode 9
• Brooklyn 99 – Season 1 episode 3
• The Vampire diaries – Season 1 episode 19
• Glee – Season 1 episode 2
• Lucifer – Season 3 episode 24
• Suits – Season 1 episode 1
• Umbrella Academy – Season 2 episode 5
• Love, Rosie
• Grown ups
• Footloose
• Bridge to Terabithia
• Perks of being a wallflower
• Divergent
• Wild Child

Stan:

• Greys Anatomy – Season 4 episode 24, season 10 episode 24 & season 14 episode 7
• The Originals – Season 2 episode 14
• If I Stay

YouTube:

• Friends – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-HbHCcK58&ab_channel=edisonlsm
• Mamma Mia –

• Fast and Furious 7 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmdcERGYaCg&ab_channel=TomerTzimerman
• Chicago Fire – Season 6 episode 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tn7uUaTwNE&ab_channel=ChicagoFirefanpage
• Jane the Virgin – Season 1 episode 6 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw8MygoGtuk&ab_channel=onomotomato

DVD:

• Little Women
• Harry Potter Deathly hallows Part 1

In the standard household nowadays each member has a phone, a laptop each, or a family computer, a tv or numerous, most of which are now smart tvs that connect to programs such as Netflix or Youtube. If you are extra tech savvy, your household may also have products such as google home, or game consoles, or Nintendo switches. What each of these have in common is the access to internet. And this is just in one household. By adding sensors computers are able to understand, analyse, and communicate data without the help of humans.

“The Internet of Things is making the fabric of the world around us more smarter and more responsive, merging the digital and physical universes.”

Steve Ranger, ‘The Internet of Things explained. What the IoT is, and where it’s going next’

The Internet of things links to all the many devices in the world that collect, share, and transmit data using the internet. I thought for this week to extend not only your knowledge by my own, I wanted to discuss the products that are not your generic iPhone or Macbook Pro, that is linked to the internet and helps us with everyday life. Internet advancements within our homes are growing increasingly popular. Smart homes are what they’re called. And they’re popular with the big tech companies. I have to admit I have a google home, and a smart TV… I think that’s about as close as a smart house we’re gonna get. However, smart houses these days aren’t just smart speakers and Tv’s that have Netflix on it. Nowadays, smart homes are much more advanced with lightbulbs connected to an app on your phone, or security systems that send alerts to your phone where you can watch footage in real time. This technological advancements have expanded the Internet of things, growing exponentially in popularity, and we may not be fancy but my house is guilty of buying appliances that can make life a little easier. Appliances like google home and Amazons echo, allow us to check the weather report, set alarms, and play music without having to lift a fingers, solely voice activated. These appliances are making life simpler but are they making us lazier? Just a thought…

References:

Steve Ranger, ‘The Internet of Things explained. What the IoT is, and where it’s going next’,

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-the-internet-of-things-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-iot-right-now/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calmingcore/

Link to my BETA: https://tarynctimeline.home.blog/2020/10/17/beta-calming-core/

It’s that time in the semester again where I share to you the newest additions, changes, faults, flaws, feedback, and success for Calming core. Calming core has not only become a project I enjoy being apart of, but it has also become a page that I can share my own experiences without the fear of judgment or embarrassment. An outlet as such. This encompasses our original goal for calming core. When Lili and I first set out Calming core, we wanted our page to become a place where people can come to for advice, support, reassurance, as well as, a place they can share their own experiences. Whether this be through comments, messages, instagram polls or replying back to our stories, in each way our audience is engaging for a reason.

With any project though, there are changes that need to made. There was a quote that stuck out to me in one of week 10s reading by Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman,

“No one wants to live the same day over and over again. Even if it were the happiest day of your life, events would lose their impact. Happiness would wear off because of repetition suppression. As a result, we continually alter what is already working. Without that urge, our most delicious experiences would be rendered flavourless by routine”

Although, our project is already working, we have to change things up, switch perspectives, alter our process, in order to keep our content interesting and engaging.

CHANGES:

Thankful thursday

There have been a few changes to our DA since last time I spoke of our progress. As mentioned in my BETA, we have recently introduced the idea of ‘Thankful Thursdays’. First, we reached out to our audience of stories to ask them whether they would be interested in us making this idea a reality, or whether it’s an idea to keep aside for another time. Majority voted yes, so that week we started up ‘Thankful Thursdays’. We only received 2 replies each time we posted, however, I still believe this is a great result. As time builds, I’m hoping so does the openness and trust of our users.

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Vulnerability

I big change we had throughout this process was the use of our own experiences for others personal gain. At the beginning we meant this by sharing ways we have found to work for us to cope with anxiety at home. However, as more feedback was being given and the more I personally posted about how I was feeling, my unproductiveness, or my own flaws with anxiety, the more it showed this is what users wanted to see. This allowed us to shift our perspective to a more open relationship between us and our followers. People around me in my personal life have told me how great our page is and how much they love the openness I portray on our page as it creates a sense of normalcy towards these feelings, actions, and emotions. Lately, I have begun to show more of my flawed days. I’ve begun to show my face more. It may seem like a small change, and it was in the beginning, but in the end, I believe this has been the key from standing out against others like it.

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Scheduling

This is the most recent change of all. Recently, we have found it hard to keep up with posting frequently on our regular news feed instead of stories. Just before the BETA, we put up a poll asking if we should post more or less and 100% of the votes were for more. I wasn’t sure how I could fix this as I focus so much on stories, that we do neglect actual posts a fair bit. Then I remembered an app I heard a lot about called preview which I was recommended at the start of the semester to help with theme control and scheduling. Playing around with it for the past week, 3 posts have already been scheduled to be posted. This has already been so helpful for planning, time management, aesthetics, and posting at a reasonable time. I did some research into the benefits of scheduling and came across this article: https://later.com/blog/scheduling-instagram-posts/

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Tik Tok/Reels

A few weeks ago, I had a really rough couple weeks that lead to me needing to take a mental health day. I don’t usually do this so I thought I would film what I got up to on the day. This would not only allow us to try out new avenues like TikTok, but it also meant that I had to take care of myself that day. I edited these short clips to a popular TikTok audio, and posted it. On Tik Tok, this video got 278 views. I later posted this TikTok to our instagram as a reel which reached 342 views. This has persuaded Lili and I to now look into TikTok has another avenue for our project. A place we can share wholesome, vulnerable, and creative videos to help others, and with the growing popularity of TikTok, it’s not such a bad idea. This article by Influencer Marketing Hub, it presents a graph that demonstrates the fast growth of TikTok. Many businesses have begun sharing content on the platform as a means of audience engagement and advertising marketing strategies. In another article but this time by Maria Keslj in the Harvard Politcal Review, she discusses TikTok as the future of social media, and how 2020 saw TikTok hit it’s highest amount of users this year with over 2 billion downloads happening in April alone amidst Covid 19 quarantine and lockdowns.

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@taryncastle5

Have been struggling for the past couple weeks so decided to take a mental health day and focused on myself. #fyp #anxiety #mentalhealthmatters

♬ Put Your Records On – Ritt Momney

Weekly lessons:

The weekly lectures have played a huge part in the development of our project. The ideas of reframing (as discussed in last blog), prototyping, testing, breaking, and remaking, all whether small or big, have been adapted to Calming core. Reframing was an early adjustment where we reframed the way we see our audience from a certain look or stereotype, to a specific feeling. This shift in perspective changed the way we saw our audience as many to many, as well as influencing the openness of our content. Our content was altered to take a different view, more personal, more open, more vulnerable. Our recent prototyping outside of the Calming core page was this Tik Tok documenting my mental health day, as well as later posting a reel. It tested how audiences on not only our own platform and within our own community, but outside on other platforms reacted. As the process continues, we will be posing more reels to show a more realistic and personal side to our page, and allows us to produce more content than just images or super short videos. Breaking and remaking has been a new concept, however, we have been incorporating this idea into our project without actually realising. Let me explain… the concept of remaking involves the process of starting with a whole, analysing (breaking it into parts) , and creating a synthesis ( a new whole). With any good project this is already being done. Even if something is working perfectly, we break it down into parts, analyse it, and determine how we can make it better or more suitable. Then we create a new whole, a new outcome, new feedback, and new responses. This can change a whole project. For us, this has been with stories. Although the engagment with our stories is already great and the feedback is nothing but understanding, sharing, and supportive, it can be better. Overtime, we have broken down how we can fix this, how we can make it better. So we broke our ideas into parts, saw what was working and what wasn’t, and we adjusted. This links back to the paragraph on vulnerability.

What’s in the future?

I like to end these blogs with a look into the possibilities for the future. Last progress report I uploaded I discussed the possibility of creating a blog. This is still in the cards, however, ‘Thankful Thursday’ is a guide to achieve this. Using ‘Thankful Thursday’ to encourage users to share and be open, ensures that when and if a blog is made, our users will feel comfortable sharing. As for now, we are still trying to use utilise the tools available to us through instagram and are looking into the use of Tik Tok and instagram reels to enhance our engagement and relationship between producer and consumer.

References:

Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman, ‘Breaking Good: Why Artists Remake, Experiment, and Smash Tradition’

Breaking Good: Why Artists Remake, Experiment, and Smash Tradition

Benjamin Chacon, ‘8 reasons you should be scheduling instagram posts + stories in 2020’,

8 Reasons You Should Be Scheduling Instagram Posts + Stories in 2020

Maria Keselj, ‘The future is TikTok’,

https://harvardpolitics.com/the-future-is-tiktok/#:~:text=Out%20of%20the%20ashes%20of,culture%2C%20education%2C%20and%20activism.&text=TikTok%20has%20been%20available%20for,increase%20in%20users%20this%20year.

Influencer Marketing Hub, ‘The Incredible Rise of TikTok’, https://influencermarketinghub.com/tiktok-growth/

“The internet is not just some communication network, it turns into the primary battle space” Ted mitew

A quote that I believe to represent the idea of cyberwar to a T.

As defined by Steve Ranger in his article about cyberwar ‘What is cyberwar? Everything you need to know about the frightening future of digital conflict’;

“Cyberwarfare refers to the use of digital attacks — like computer viruses and hacking — by one country to disrupt the vital computer systems of another, with the aim of creating damage, death and destruction.”

In order to get a better understanding of what exactly this means, I did some research into notorious cyber attacks in cyber history. And as you can imagine, cyberwarfare isn’t a new concept. Actually, it’s been around for a long time.

An example, I think of is one that hits a little closer to home… Australia. In 2017 a global cyber attack saw 200,000 people’s computers wormed, users shut out.. that was until they made payment. In an article released by ‘The Guardian‘ in May 2017 while the cyberattacks were still at around 45,000, they stated “By Friday evening, the ransomware had spread to the United States and South America, though Europe and Russia remained the hardest hit, according to security researchers Malware Hunter Team. The Russian interior ministry says about 1,000 computers have been affected”.

This was big news in Australia as the second the cyber attack wormed (pun very much intended) its way into our business’, it hit close to home. It wasn’t just something that affected other countries around the world… it now affected us too.

I wondered how is this going to progress? Where can cyberwarfare go? In 2013 James R. Clapper stated that small scaled attacks should be of more concern with he likelihood to happen, than large scale attacks from countries such as Russia or China, that would cause long term damages. There is still so much to learn about cyberwarfare and just how frequent and dangerous it is.

When I hear the term “attention economy” my understand is the attention economy within the entertainment industry. I think of the media competition of gaining consumers sole focus, in such a way that we as individuals are addicted to our screens. We are so consumed with what we see on our screens that we forget how to fully live in the moment. They way we see love, is affected. The way we see work is affected. The way we see life is affected. In a way, our life comes less important and those in a screen are prioritised over real life moments. The recently released Netflix documentary ‘The social dilemma’ dives deep into this idea of global media competition fighting for our attention, and the influence and addiction our media causes. Tristan Harris, a computer scientist and co-founder of ‘the Centre for Humane Technology’ was a huge inspiration for this film. His works, speeches, and involvement in said documentary, speaks deeply into the attention economy and its influence on us as consumers. A statement that really stood out to me in the documentary was by Jonathan Haidt a social psychologist, and he said:

A whole generation is more anxious, more fragile, more depressed. They’re much less comfortable taking risks. The rates in which they get drivers licences have been dropping. The number who have ever gone out on a date or have any kind of romantic interaction is dropping rapidly. This is a real change in a generation”

Jonathan Haidt, ‘The Social Dilemma’, 40:06

So, I propose a film that represents this exact message. Last week I presented my idea to my class. Overall, my message was clear and feedback was nothing but supportive and understanding. Of course, with any valuable feedback comes changes and add ons to the original idea to enhance its purpose and overall success. First it’s important to understand my structure. My film, will consist of a person standing in front of a while screen as significant videos are projected over her. One compilation of videos will be snippets from popular tv shows or movies that are displayed across platforms like Stan and Netflix. This scene is metaphorically used to demonstrate how our media is all consuming, addictive, influencing, and distracting from real life. The actors eyes will be wide open demonstrating her undivided attention. The second compilation of videos are more personal, gathered from my own experiences, and again projected over the individual. This time her eyes will be closed, leaving the meaning up to interpretation. Is she closing herself off from these moments? Are these her memories? Is she locking out her memories? I want to leave the audience to decide how they experience this moment. These 2 scenes will be presented next to each other in a split screen to show the two in comparison

Feedback gave me the idea to add on to the chaos I plan to represent. I want to focus on the chaos and the distraction our media creates in our minds. Instead of dressing my actress in dark or translucent clothes, I was given the idea to dress them in bright and chaotic clothes… could be something like this:

The audience is not a film of comfort but more a film of awareness and uncomfortable truths.

This a just a compilation of clips taken from popular Tv shows and movies that will letter be projected on the individual as part of my final project. This is a demonstration of the possible length of the film, as well as, a demonstration of my ideas as discussed in my presentation.

My presentation:

References:

‘The Social Dilemma’ trailer, Netflix

‘The Centre for Humane Technology’, https://www.humanetech.com/

‘The Centre for Human Technology’, https://www.tristanharris.com/