People keep track of there lives in multiple ways. As Nora Young points out in The Virtual Self “The roots of personal monitoring…run deep in Western culture” the biggest difference, and the one Young explores, is the role that digital technology plays in recording and monitoring the self. Young’s book is essentially a primer for a new way of being present in the digital landscape. Young focuses mostly on the digital tracking of health and wellness. She only touches briefly on social media which, I believe, is a great detriment to the book. The first few chapters are an exploration of the vast variety of types of tracking that can be done, everything from hours, and type, of sleep, to diet, to places travelled. There is a way to track almost anything a person or persons can do. This ability to surveil is one that will only become easier and more ubiquitous. She then goes on to talk about the uses of the data data gathered and the ethical conundrums that can, and will, effect this “industry.”

Young explores many aspects of the digital self, but she does not explore the most interesting thing to me: that of the creation of an archive of everyday life. Her focus is on that of self-improvement, how data collection helps to alter behavior, for better or worse. In the first chapter Young calls it “surveillance of the self”, an ominous but apt description of self-monitoring. More importantly though, in the same paragraph she goes on to say, “engaging with digital technology means engaging the potential for gathering and storing digital information, whether we choose to use it or not- in fact, whether we are aware of it or not.” Social media and other websites are archived in many different ways, to the point where the entirety of Twitter is now searchable in the Library of Congress (Twitterati Bloggerati by Mary Cross). In chapter eight Young starts of a discussion of the ethical considerations of all this publicly available data it is but a surface discussion, perhaps because of the time it was written. The last year or so has seen some frightening revelations about privacy on the internet, and, while a lot of this information is very specific, this information can be used for multiple purposes.

As an anthropologist interested in how digital media form and affect identity Young’s book is a bit of a disappointment. There is not enough of an exploration of the deep meaning of the desire to use these tools/data or the effect of collecting and using any and all possible data available. The idea of collecting all this data comes across as a novelty still with just the briefest of hints of the possibilities. Young’s focus on self-improvement as the only aspect of the virtual self is a bit myopic. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, these are important aspects of a person’s virtual identity and Young barely mentions them let alone discusses them. Tumblr, especially, is creating a space that is remarkable for the sense of community it curates,for example those who identify as LGBTQ, and is working as a safe place for individuals to express their true selves. This community, and self improvement is important, has a more important affect on the world around us.

For a book sub-titled “How our digital lives are altering the world around us” Young spends very little words discussing how the digital is altering the world around us.  Perhaps it is my miss-reading of the book. It may not seem like it, but I did enjoy the book, and have started using some of the apps that Young talks about, such as Mint and Carrot. However, I find these apps are not anywhere near engaging enough, Carrot more so than Mint.com, to keep using. After only a week of using Mint, I realized it was telling me what I already knew. Again maybe I’m not the specific audience. In my experience social media are having a far bigger impact on the world around us than self-tracking is. Unfortunately the book just did not dive deeply enough into this aspect of “the virtual self” for me and ignored the bigger aspects of social networking and these communities affect “real life”.

Forgetting is an inevitable function of the human brain. Despite the means in which information is obtained, it is literally impossible for one to remember everything which they have learned without external assistance. This point has constantly held true, though never has external assistance been as readily available as in our present day and age.

Mayer-Schönberger takes this quality of our society and attempts to break into it through the pages of his book, delete. Beginning the read with brief fear-invoking tales about two individuals, the author continues this theme throughout the duration of the novel. One of the two individuals, Stacy Snyder, is mentioned frequently throughout the book as an example of digital remembering gone wrong. Mayer-Schönberger outlines her refusal to graduate by Millersville University in May 2006, due to a drunken photo posted publicly on her MySpace page. Not only was this the fault of her own, but it is clear that Stacy wanted this photo shared, rather than deleted, or she would not have posted it publicly to the internet. What the author also fails to mention in the case of Stacy Snyder, is the her “ignorance of basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage — her inadequate classroom management, her poor understanding of the subjects she attempted to teach, and her inappropriate manner with students” brought to the forefront during the court case barring her from graduation. I believe that this is an important point to note so that the reader does not base the story purely on the controversial MySpace photo.

Referring to cases such as EPA’s unsafe public information, provides a good example of how information availability can provide negative effects, alongside its positives. Though I fully appreciated this example, Mayer-Schönberger next brings up the case of digitally storing medical files. He looks into the case in which a digitally remembered patient profile may cause uncertainty when multiple doctors look at another doctor’s recorded note. Stating that one doctor may not agree with another doctor’s point of view on certain behaviours does not in any way reflect a negative effect of digital remembering. This issue will always occur, despite the means to which information is recorded and shared. Stating that “perfect remembering exposes us to filtering, selection and interpretation challenges” (p.96) appears a highly irrelevant argument, when proposing that forgetting would provide a better outcome.

Further explored within the chapter “Of Power and Time” is the idea of companies storing personal data, and building information dossiers for each of their users. Upon visiting, individuals are agreeing to a website’s terms of service, which will generally specify what will occur with regards to provided user information. Mayer-Schönberger repeatedly refers to this as a loss of control over our information. However, if we are voluntarily handing that information over, is it really to be unexpected that control is lost? In my opinion, providing all of this information to various search engines and ad providers, especially when we are agreeing to do so, creates a more personalized and enjoyable web experience. While cases do exists, as the author mentions, in which a digital seller will inflate prices due to external information, this case splits down into part digital remembering, and part social engineering (which plays a more important role in the matter).

The story of John and Jane, mentioned in “Of Power and Time”, shows the author’s repeated opinion that forgetting various pieces of information would provide a better outcome than remembering.  Stating that Jane “had apparently forgiven [John] to the point that she had even forgotten the conflict” (p.114) implies that forgetting an occurrence would have solved the issue. As mentioned with the transfer of doctor notes, Mayer-Schönberger seems to promote the loss of information as a solution. If Jane had wanted to forget about the incident altogether, as it is suggested, she could have very easily removed the email. This example uses poor conflict resolution between John and Jane to try and portray a negative side of digital remembering.

Chapter five of the book looks at six proposed means to avoiding the negatives of digital remembering. These cover areas from digital abstinence and DRM rights for information, to a mass cognitive shift, accepting technology into our society, and understanding the benefits and negatives which are brought to the table.

Finally, Mayer-Schönberger concludes the book, proposing his own solution to the negatives of digital remembering: expiring time stamps on personal data. This solution brings us right back to my aforementioned points in which the author promoted forgetting over remembering. Though I do not have a counter solution to this issue, which I am unsure actually exists, I believe that allowing our data to expire after a period of time would erase drastic amounts of the progress made through technological advancement. We finally have found a means in which data can be preserved for longer than the once-innovative written language, and an electronic timestamp would prove entirely counter intuitive to this.

References

Diamond, J. (2008) STACEY SNYDER v. MILLERSVILLE UNIVERSITY, et al. (Case No. 2:07-cv-01660-PD) Retrieved from The Washington Post website: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/Decision%202008.12.03.pdf

Sorry, but even in the future, nice guys finish last. Nice guy meets girl, nice guy loves girl a lot, girl moves in with nice guy, girl leaves nice guy for an evil charismatic friend-killing youthful 70-year-old boss. Classic. The final chapter of Gary Shteyngart’s My Super Sad True Love Story somewhat redeems protagonist, poor ol’ Lenny Abramov, where he retires in an old Italian village – where youth is not an obsession and he can age comfortably. Up until the final chapter, second generation Russian immigrant Lenny had been a balding 39-year-old Jewish man who loved a less than 90 pound, freckled, 24-year-old Korean girl, Eunice Park. The story takes place in the not-so-distant future, almost uncomfortably close to 2014. Appäräti are the more technologically advanced and complex iPhones of the future which obliterate privacy, more so than now. Information like childhood abuse, credit rankings and mood are available as well as a “Fuckability” ranking. Oh yeah, the future is incredibly sexualized. At one point Eunice mentions watching porn in kindergarten class.

The story begins and ends in Italy, but all the action takes place in economically failing America. Lenny has to bypass a digital otter to return home, who we meet several reincarnations of. Eunice leaves Italy because of her abusive father (a reoccurring theme in the novel, where äppäräti sounds similar to ‘father’ in Korean). She lives with Lenny in NYC, where the super sad true love story begins. Nice guy Lenny cries a lot and though Eunice only expresses spontaneous glimpses of affection, we believe she does love him back. Despite her coldness, she is sympathetic to the Low Net Worth individuals in the park and the elderly women in his building.

Immortality, a salient theme of the novel, is an option for High Net Worth individuals, a business which employees Lenny. His boss, and the man Eunice eventually leaves him for, is undergoing treatments (like dechronification and replacing blood with SmartBlood) to reverse aging. He is in his seventies but looks, as Eunice describes, like Lenny’s hot younger brother. His name is Joshie Goldmann, a powerful figure who we believe kills Lenny’s best friend Noah by blowing up a ferry. It can be speculated he posed as Lenny’s American mama, Nettie Fine, to kill Noah.

The virtual self, the äppäräti, is argued to be so essential to us that it gives us meaning and a sense of worth, depicted as “they couldn’t see a future without their äppäräti” (Shteyngart 270). When the technology momentarily fails, young people commit suicide because they “needed to be ranked, to know [their] place in this world” (Shteyngart 270). Today, the need for ranking is demonstrated by a need for likes, followers, friends, retweets on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It is this deep connection to technology which is our downfall, where without it, we feel meaningless. My roommate’s voice echoing in my ears: “I would die without my iPhone”. Perhaps in the future, the virtual self will infiltrate our real selves until the two are indistinguishable. Perhaps, it will make life and death indistinguishable. I argue this may already be happening.

Today when someone dies, their virtual self lives on. The deceased’s online profile is inundated with messages. People write on his/her wall, tag him/her in photos and interact with the profile, rendering it an active site of communication. It’s like the online world doesn’t truly recognize death. The account does not die when the person dies. An article in the Huffington Post outlines this through the death of Anthony Dowdell, where friends would tag him at various locations, like he was there too, “as if he were still living” (Kaleem). This phenomena is mimicked when Eunice Park continues to message Grillbitch a.k.a Jenny Kang, who is suggested to have died.

Maybe it will be our online selves that live forever, or perhaps we will become semi-robotic like Joshie, filled with machines and SmartBlood. Modern medicine can already keep bodies alive long after the brain has died. But, with a skewed perception of death, we may inherit a skewed perception of life similar to Lenny’s: “if we have only one life to live, we might as well have not lived at all” (Shteyngart 275). The impending doom of death determines how we live on a day to day basis, if that element is removed, we may feel entirely meaningless. The ephemeral nature of life is suppose to make us seize the day, live every moment, and follow other inspirational quotes found on Tumblr or tattooed on skin. I want my virtual self to remain separate from me.

References:

Shteyngart, Gary. My Super Sad True Love Story. New York, New York: Random House, 2011. Print.

Kaleem, Jaweed. “Death on Facebook Now Common As ‘Dead Profiles’ Create Vast Virtual Cemetery.” Huffington Post 07 Dec 2012. Web.

Mindfully Connected – Nora Young and Groundedness in the Digital Age

Mindfulness: the state or quality of being mindful; attention; †memory (obs.); †intention, purpose (obs.)

            -Oxford English Dictionary

Nora Young only briefly touches on the subject of mindfulness in her book The Virtual Self, in fact it covers only one chapter. The book, which chronicles Young’s account of digitally tracking herself, floats between critical social commentary and entertaining anecdotal observations in a thoughtful and compassionate tone. The chapter of my interest, namely “The Delights and Damage of Digital Life” focuses on the “disembodiment” or “ungrounding” that might be caused by too much dependence on the digital world. I found this chapter particularly powerful because, as a yoga teacher who is also a huge fan of digital technology, the challenge of groundedness is something that I am faced with daily, and something that I struggle to help others with, too. In this chapter, Young seems to be asking the question: How do we balance the demanding ephemeral digital world, while staying grounded in our bodies?

One answer to that may be a new phenomenon called “digital detoxes”, where participants pay upwards of hundreds of dollars to embark on nature retreats that are strictly digital –free zones. One such getaway is called “Camp Grounded” and is run by an organization, aptly called Digital Detox. Camp Grounded is tucked away in the wilderness amidst the Silicone Valley, and it’s website advertises hands-on grounding activities such as yoga, hiking, cooking, art and organic meals, as well as “Off the Grid, No Boss, No Cellphone, No Clock, No Work” (http://thedigitaldetox.org/).

At first glance, this type of activity doesn’t seem any different from a typical retreat except for its almost obsessive dedication to being digital-free. The website boasts “liberation from technology” and warns that “friendships at camp are based on real-life connections.” It’s disturbing that we need to be reminded and coached into making these real-life connections – that stripped bare of our Facebook friend count and status updates, we would have to actually engage in real-life one on one interactions with real people.

Ironically, along with this trend towards “digital detoxes”, for those who cannot afford to tune out of technology, there has emerged a whole host of new applications that can be downloaded and installed onto a smartphone, which promise to streamline and simplify your digital life. For the desperately addicted there is the Adbusters’ inspired Digital Detox app which “irrevocably disables your Android phone for a period of time you specify” (https://tirl.org/software/digitaldetox/#removal).  That means that once you’ve initiated the detox, there is no way to reactivate your device, aside from a factory reset, effectively rebooting and reformatting it. The uplifting part of this new trend, is that it signifies a collective desire to balance out from the digital craze that has swept society over the past decade or so.

“To be digital,” says Young, “is to feel a perpetual, lightweight sense of connection and energy.” It’s a “thin, fast, evolving, highly collaborative culture” (81). The emergence of digital detoxes shows that collectively we’ve become aware of the implicit danger of drowning in our digital lives; of being caught in the deadly undertow of digital multitasking and constantly updated statuses. If we imagine the digital world as a swiftly moving river, digital detoxes offer a rock in the current, an ability to jump out, catch our breath and find our footing.

In The Virtual Self, Young comments on the “continuous partial attention,” that is fostered by a digital engagement  (89). She describes how “we scan the digital horizon, perpetually on the lookout for the next hit” (90). She questions whether we are truly multitasking with our various digital devices – cell phones Facebook, Pinterest etc., constantly beeping for our attention – or if we are just only semi-engaged all the time, and if so, what is this doing to our health?

A new report by the University of Edinburg purports that the more social media connections that someone has, the more stressful social media will be for that person.

“Stress arises when a user presents a version of themself on Facebook that is unacceptable to some of their online ‘friends’, such as posts displaying behaviour such as swearing, recklessness, drinking and smoking.”  according to a Press Release for the study. In addition to being constantly bombarded with new information, the study suggests that digital connections cause stress because of the need to constantly be monitoring what our digital selves might betray about our personal selves.

“We need to make space for that which cannot be statistically documented: inchoate, subjective, embodied experience.” (page 94) says Young. Perhaps the emergence of digital detoxes, mindfulness apps and attention to the connection of our physical bodies to a “disembodied” virtual self is the next step in our evolution to a discovering a healthy digital self.

I think Young is correct when she says, “being present is something that a lot of us have forgotten how to do” (96). This has been true for years well before the emergence of our digital lives. Mindfulness, stillness of the mind and connection to the body is a part of the struggle of being human; Buddhist teachings have been around for centuries with this message. No matter how many calories counted, steps mapped, or conversations recorded, a quantified digital self could never replace the deep sense of self discovery that comes from attentive introspection.

References:

Young, N. (2013). The Virtual Self: How our digital lives are altering the world around us. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

http://thedigitaldetox.org/

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-31/digital-detox-a-tech-free-retreat-for-internet-addicts

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121126131218.htm

http://techland.time.com/2013/12/20/shut-it-down-a-digital-detox-plan-for-the-holidays/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10540261/screen-time-ipad-tablet-digital-detox-difital-addiction.html

Hey all – so here’s my book review. It was a bit of a challenge (seeing as I haven’t done a writing composition since 1st year english), as I am used to writing very dry (not so fun) microbiology lab reports. Hope you enjoy the read. 🙂

I know it is going to sound super cheesy but I am going to write  it anyway’s because I believe that it accurately describes the way, not only society, but technology should be viewed. It is this: To quote Peter Parker’s uncle “With great power comes great responsibility”³.  After reading the novel “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, more than ever I was convinced that in today’s increasingly technology reliant society, we are seeing the decline of personal privacy and therefore loss of power and loss of responsibility.

In my opinion this novel delves into the idea, that with the advances of technology, forgetting is truly obsolete. The author then further examines the consequences of having all of our information both stored and shared digitally. He gives examples of those who have suffered from the notion that we have arrested the ability to forget, and instead have replaced this with a flawless memory. The first part of the book describes different forms of memory including, human, external, language-aiding, and also visual mediums (photography, video). He then looks at how, thanks to technologies like: digitization, inexpensive digital storage, the ability to retrieve this information with a click of the mouse, and how easy it is to connect globally, we are losing the ability to forget. This is leading to more influence for those who have the access to the most information, and as a result suspending the notion of time, as memory has the ability to obstruct the ebb and flow of change. Finally, the book discusses ways to combat our perfect recall and re-gain control of our own information.

For myself, perhaps the most compelling concept in the novel, was the author’s thoughts on the relation between information and the loss of privacy. With the advancements in the digitization and the increased ease, with which information (no matter how personal) can be retrieved, we are seeing a reduction in personal privacy and a loss of individual power and control of what is shared with the rest of the world. I think my idea is further solidified by the books thoughts that “information can be accessed, and for different reasons, by others…[and] people have to be more careful in how they talk, how they interact and what they offer of themselves to others.”¹ Today, because technology is so easy to use, and therefore misuse, we fail to recognize the consequences of say tweeting a racey comment, or posting a not-so appropriate photo of ourselves. Perhaps that comment may prevent you from getting a future job. Another consideration is that once we post something it is forever in cyberspace, but it is now accessible to everyone and anyone, whether this was our intention or not. In an interview Cyberliberatarian (is that even a word?!) John Perry Barlow, discusses the decline of secrecy in today’s world². He states that “the internet amplifies power in all respects. It can grossly exaggerate the power of the individual.”² He also goes on to say that companies like Google and Amazon hold a lot of control over our information, in the sense that they can constrain your ability to access your own information, remove your data if they wish and watch over everything you do². It’s hard to fathom the complete loss of control and therefore power, we have over our own information. I believe it is something that we have all experienced at one time over another, myself included. A prime example are those advertisements that have been tailored to your previous web searches, and can be seen on the side of your Facebook page. Talk about invasion of privacy! I don’t want these huge internet entities to remind me/know about what I had previously looked up. So what if I went to a weight management site one time, I really don’t want to see advertisements encouraging me to try this weight loss pill or buy this amazing fat burning machine. Although, maybe others would disagree with this. Perhaps they enjoy the personalized recommendations. Nonetheless, it is an invasion of privacy, that I did not authorize.

It is mind boggling at how little control we have over our own information, and who can access it and the fact that nothing is ever really ‘gone’ in cyberspace. All a result of living in a digital age I guess. It kind of makes one want to chuck your cell phone out the window, smash your computer, and buy a cabin in the woods. Or maybe thats a bit too rash… I did just get the new Iphone after all. I’m going to finish with a quote: “Just because something is publicly accessible does not mean that people want it to be publicized.”⁴

In this futuristic America, the government is falling apart, the national debt is through the roof, and everyone is obsessed with credit scores and technological devices. However, among all of this mayhem, two very opposite but similar people are falling in love. In the satirical Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, timing and discovering what truly matters in life are prominent themes.

This book is about the life of Lenny Abramov who is a single 39-year-old male and whose parents are immigrants from Russia. He works as the “Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator of the Post-human Division” at a company that is selling the ability to live forever. He is a middle class citizen with just a high enough credit score to not be considered a LNWI (Low Net Worth Individual) and is considered to be unattractive. Lenny does not fit in with most of society as he still reads books, which are frowned upon, and isn’t completely obsessed with his health, youthfulness and blood pressure levels.

On a trip to Europe he meets Eunice Park and completely falls head over heels. For Lenny it is love at first sight and he even goes on to say that, “he would now like to live forever”. Eunice however, does not feel this immediate connection. She originally sees him as a sad, old, ugly man but she recognizes that he would love unconditionally. Eunice is only 19 years old and comes from a strict home, as her parents are Korean immigrants. It might be her abusive father and complicated home environment that pushes her into Lenny’s safe arms. Eunice is also much more involved in the consumerism culture and is more technologically advanced than Lenny, as she is constantly on her aparat. An aparat is a personal technology that hangs around one’s neck and streams live information and can even scan a room of people and find out all of their information, as well as a rating system based on personality, hotness, and “fuckability”. This device as well as their main social/email system called GlobalTeens is what constructs this overly connected and overly sexual nation, which has lost all privacy and dignity.

As Eunice stays with Lenny in New York City their mutual love begins to take form. This unlikely couple bond over the fact that nothing seems to work out for them and both suffer from very low self-esteem. They are both quite desperate, depressed and heavily rely on each other as a type of companionship and love. It is quite ironic that they are both finding what seems to be some type of stable relationship as their world is literally falling apart.  Lenny confirms this tragic irony as he writes in his diary, “for me to fall in love with Eunice Park just as the world fell apart would be a tragedy beyond the Greeks.” It is actually very sad that the nation is crumbling as they are building this relationship, which seems to have taken forever to finally come together as the first half of the book is their separate lives and Lenny constantly imagining what life with Eunice would be like.

It would not be such a tragedy unless the nation wasn’t in such extreme trouble. There are constant riots involving the poorer portion of society (LNWI) and a large number of national guard check points that pose as extremely stressful situations for all of society.  America is at war with Venezuela and is currently depending on China’s currency to survive. Lenny’s friends have a conversation about the crisis and say, “zero hour for our economy, zero hour for our military might, zero hour for everything that used to make us proud to be ourselves.” As the tragedy escalades, cities including New York are being threatened and all of a sudden everyone’s aparats stop working and everyone truly believes the world is coming to an end. Both lovers are immediately worried about being able to contact their families and it is clear how much society relied on these technological devices.

Although the situation is less extreme, it is easy to see the connection between the aparat and the smartphone. Everyone is constantly on their phone, has it next to them 24/7 and relies on them to connect to society through messages and apps such as Facebook, which doesn’t exactly rate people the way the aparat does but it is not far off.

Society’s disheveled priorities of what is important in life and the ironic timing of true love in this story get Shteyngart’s message across. It also makes me wonder if the timing was truly off or were they together to simply make it through this crisis. The fact is that Lenny and Eunice are fighting a losing battle, which at the end makes this story sad and meaningful, and what actually makes me overall appreciate the book.

In her book The Virtual Self, Nora Young discusses the perception of self that is developed with technology in the digital era. Through extensive conversation on the concept of self-tracking, Young highlights the various qualities that can be deduced from chosen data set as well as the notion of data mapping. Within different chapters, the advantages of tracking technologies are outlined, which cannot be deliberated without acknowledging the ideas of privacy, confidentiality and ethics that are imbedded in technological cultures. As Young states, “the danger” of using social media “is that we lose touch with the subtleties of the embodied presence of those we care for”(63). To expand, I would argue that an individual’s intense roles with technology might be creating a stronger sense of self-discovery yet in combination with the “continual partial attention” (Stone), pushes the boundaries of relationships with others. Such new technologies are showing, as Young says, “that we may undervalue the role of on going physical presence of others in our self-discovery” (63).

A lot of applications that are now on the market are positive ones, which target different modes of tracking in order to further the self. The motivations of all of these apps are to promote and produce the best that you can be; to eliminate your uncertainties and to focus on the positive things. Such themes for these popular applications are fitness apps and anti-distraction apps. Fitness apps can provide a motivational means of attaining your goal, constantly reminding you of your daily requirements all while breaking down your big goal into attainable bite-sized tasks. Another big industry for the app realm is anti-distraction apps. Task management apps, such as Carrot, help you efficiently complete for to-do lists. Other apps under this category include ones, as Young recalls using, that monitor your computer usage, which supply you with distinct data of how you use your time on the computer. At first this might seem useless, but when you break down the time spent, or wasted, on certain tasks the results might be both disgust and stimulate you to change your habits. Both of these app examples are evidence that self-tracking technology is a great tool for further developing and enhancing the self.

If you go out for dinner at a restaurant tonight, you would be bombarded with people of all ages at tables and rather than engaging in conversation with the person next to them, each person at the table will have their heads buried in their smart phone or tablet. Depending on the people that you are surrounded with, this constant involvement with technology with either maintain neutrality possibly slightly strength your relationship, or the incessant attachment to technology will damage and threaten your relationship with said person. This trend of technological involvement is one that I have observed numerous times in various spaces and places. Call me old-fashioned, but the more attached that an individual is to their technology, the more disengaged I feel with the person and the more repelled I then become, leading me to feel uncomfortable and dissatisfied, no longer wanting to spend my time with said person. This example demonstrates that the determination of just how virtual the self is, will have a great impact the values that are represented in daily lives, hence will be visible in their relationships.

In the world of recreational books, Young’s novel does a great job of highlighting the new scope of technology, including the possibilities of self-tracking, data management and our personal futures with such technologies. Although, reading this book from an academic point of view, I have to say that the book felt very unfinished, as if it were a prequel to a bigger volume. As far as material covered in this novel, nothing that she talks about was new or exciting. All of the “new” technology she discusses is no longer in the forefront of up and coming media, as I have already been exposed to it and discussed it in several other classes. Contrary to my opinion of the novel’s content, for the average Joe who doesn’t engage with the news or academia, this book might just be revolutionary.

Works Cited

Young, Nora. The virtual self: how our digital lives are altering the world around us. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 2012.

The author of The Virtual Self: How Our Digital Lives Are Altering The World Around Us, Nora Young, volunteers herself to self tracking technologies to get an inside look and experience on how they feel, may influence others, and how she is being digitally tracked. She covers a wide variety of concerns with being online, such as privacy concerns, our different identities, freedoms and sharing opportunities, legalities and data ownership, addictions or compulsive behaviours, and augmented memories.

Though her writing style is unique and easy to follow, I cannot help myself from twitching every time she is repetitive, which happens often. She often refers to data mapping, being delinked, and has inventive ways of saying ‘digital self’, ‘extended self’, ‘online doppelganger’, ‘augmented self’, ‘digital doubles,’ and so on, that are just unnecessary because she repeats her questions and statements to begin with.  She also seems to feel the need to “welcome” the readers a few times into worlds that I thought I already new existed and was apart of. They are welcomes such as, “welcome to your new digital self” (p. 78), and “welcome to the booming world of data visualization” (p. 145), that add to the repetitive nature.

She does take some facts and statistics from different corporations such as Google and Apple, and discusses some past faults that sites like Netflix and the Internet Movie Database have made in the past, but it’s still the same questions being asked as before, just address to different companies, especially on the subject of these businesses tracking users; like the iPhone tracking system she discussed halfway through the book. How much information about us is really out there? Who’s tracking it? Who has access to it? How can we avoid digital footprints? These are superfluous questions that are never fully answered. The companies and other users surely can track our posts and behaviours? And perhaps marketers? Or even the public? But maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe questions like these cannot always be entirely answered. But isn’t that the whole point of Netflix? To track our likes and dislikes to better our choice selections, suggestions and movie watching experiences? Reading through this section was what irked me the most about her redundancies. I presumed that certain brands like Netflix come with certain expectations, so it is no surprise to me that they track like they do. I wanted to hear more in depth research done about what the owners do with the information in secret; the stuff they do that is not on the surface of assumptions.

The reading of this book, however, was not all bad. It made me more appreciative of some of the extra laws—though sometimes there don’t seem to be enough—we have here in British Columbia to protect our personal privacy compared to some privacy laws—or lack there of—in some American states that do little for their citizens. It also gave me the sense that I am not alone, wondering these same questions, and that I’m not the only one guilty of having the same bad habits in respect to the online world either Young has herself or the people she talks about. There has got to be more done about creating new laws about what companies can get away with online because what may be in place doesn’t seem like enough. Like Young says, there has to be “a more robust way to protect my data than ticking ‘I agree’ to a document I barely understand…” (p 176).

We want to run our lives and our bodies like machines. But we have developed too many technologies too fast so we don’t know how to use them effectively as well as being aware of their consequences. We want to be “seen” and “heard” so badly, that we’ll blog and tweet endlessly for a simple acknowledgement of view counts or likes. We also want our devices to be our “out-board” brains and do the remembering for us.  What kind of consequences does this augmented memory system really have on us? What role does this digital tracking have on us and other societies?

The way we interact with each other is changing rapidly. We generate huge amounts of data of ourselves on social media; where we’ve been, what we ate, who we are with, what we think, what we buy, our workouts, and so on. What is it that we are choosing to report? I was still expecting her to have more answers. I wanted to know more about everybody’s consequences of online actions, and what sort of implications there might be on a more global scale. We have limitations as physical beings, but fewer limitations in having virtual knowledge and presences in the online world. Which reality would we rather live in? And with all social media has done for us, what does it really do other than fill our need for attention and news sharing? Why is it so addicting for some?