## <span class="censor">Digital Identities and Social Media // S04</span> <!--Pablo--> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/WnvJwJo.png" width=35%> Pablo Velasco // Information Studies // [pablov.me](https://pablov.me) --- # Tracking, Performance, and the quantified self ### plan for the day 1. Quantified self 2. Classification and performativity 3. Digitalizing Spradley --- ### Dear Data Project <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_phone_addiction1.jpg" width="30%"> <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_phone_addiction2.jpg" width="30%"> <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_beautiful_full.jpg" width="30%"> *See also:* [Quantified selfie project](http://quantifiedselfie.us/) --- #### Posavec-lupi recipe: **Data** (it can be any data) + **Rules**: How to read it? (higher means *x*, lower means *y*) + **Visual variables**: shape, colour, size... <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_recipe1.jpg" width="22%"> <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_recipe2.jpg" width="22%"> <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_recipe3.jpg" width="22%"> <img src="https://gitlab.com/xpablov/data-studies/-/raw/master/DS19/S04/dd_recipe4.jpg" width="22%"> --- ## Quantified Self Sleep better, eat healthier, exercise more efficiently <!-- you saw that many of the tracking apps are related to health or wellbeing --> - A form of self-improvement and a form of self-reflection - self-tracking != tracking of the self by others - "soft resistance" (Nafus and Sherman 2014) > an important modality of resistance to dominant modes of living with data (...) Soft resistance happens when participants assume multiple roles as project designers, data collectors, and critical sense-makers, rapidly assessing and often changing what data they collect and why in response to idiosyncratically shifting sets of priorities and objectives (Lupton 2016) > <!-- the feeling that you're in control--> ---- **Changes to Qantified Self upon computing (Lupton 2016):** 1. Practices are digitised and automated (easier to monitor and shape) 2. Stored on clouds and databases -> not limited to self-trackers, but to developers, third parties, data mining companies, government agencies, hackers 3. Information with high commercial value ---- #### Activity (1-3 people) 1. Choose a proyect from the https://quantifiedself.com/show-and-tell/ catalog. 2. What are the goals of the project? What are the steps (methodology, if any) taken to reach such goal? 3. Is this an individual tracking? ---- ### Qualified Self (Humphreys 2018) - sharing is not a digital practice (diaries, photo albums, etc) - the accounting of everyday’s life (documentation practices) - an account of something - accounting as enumeration - accountability as liability - self understanding through “the representations of ourselves [that we create] to be consumed” - curated photos are not pure narcissism, but a social mediation ---- **"Lively data"** (Savage 2013): large masses of fluctuating digital data - and fundamentally about human life (Uprichard 2012, Savage 2013): “bodily functions, behaviours, social relationships, moods and emotions” **Dataification** (van Dijck 2014): social actions turned into quantified data (e.g. Moll's Dating Brokers project https://datadating.tacticaltech.org/viz) ---- <!-- .slide: data-background-image="https://wallpapercave.com/wp/ft9ocZS.jpg"--> <iframe width="948" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3RFwhEvVqnA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> https://youtu.be/3RFwhEvVqnA ---- **"Context collapse”** (boyd 2008, Marwick and boyd 2011) - idenity work is labor - aspirational identities: media created by others: disabling tailoring of digital identities in order to improve personalisation and advertisement. >The requirement to present a verifiable, singular identity makes it impossible to differ self-presentation strategies, creating tension as diverse groups of people flock to social network sites (marwick and boyd 2011) *Think about the influencer’s persona: how similar is it? How much does it influence your own curating processes?* --- ## Classification and performativity Jenkins (2000) <!-- "being danish: paradoxes of identity in everyday life" -- "please"--> ”All human knowledge is dependant on upon classification” <!--weird generalisation, but ok--> - Dialectics of internal (self or group categorization) and external (categorisation made by others) moments of identification: - 3 orders of social phenomena: 1. Individual order (own body and mind) 2. Interaction order (co-presence between individuals) 3. Institutional order: symbolic patterns (not neither of these isolated) <small>**Institutional context of social categorisation** (from informal to formal): *primary socialization, routine public interaction, communal relationships, memberships of informal groups, kinship relationships, life-course transitions, healing and medicine, secondary socialization, market relations, employment, social control, organized politics, social policy, official classification, science*</small> ---- ### To which categories do you belong, according to facebook? <img src="https://i.imgur.com/LnsGYab.png" width="50%"> <img src="https://i.imgur.com/qyxiI6M.png" width="40%"> ---- 1. Go to Facebook settings -> ads -> your information -> your categories 2. Is this catalog of categorizations internal or external? 3. Are these categorization an accurate or close description of your self-identification? 4. To which of Jenkins' orders do these categories belong to? Is there something about facebook's categories that escapes Jenkins approach? ---- Pearson (2009) - reminder: frontstage (clear cues and patterns of exchange, and self-awareness) & backstage (private, and less articulated, intimate space) - in online exchanges “the performance is suspended between the private and the public” <!--*Who watches our backstage?--> <!--glass bedroom metaphor--> - strong (high levels of emotional engagement, intimacy, reciprocity) and weak ties (Granovetter 1973) - lurking: “even watching a performance constitutes a form of engagement” *Approximately how many of your “contacts” are weak? Are they divided by platforms? Do you perform for “them” (as individuals, or groups?)?* --- ## Digital participant observation (3-5 students): 1. Locate a social situation (Spradley's step 1) in a digital setting. Identify *place, actors*, and *activity* (if these exist). How does the selection criteria (*accessbility, recurring activities*, etc) are modified? 2. What type of participation (Spradley's step 2) is possible in the (digital) social situation you identified? --- # BB2 update 🤷 <!-- ## Blueprint Activity A little ecology of social media relationships Create a blueprint of how to map and visualise the self and its significant relationships **across social media**. The blueprint, when filled out should give an overview of the different social media sites person X uses for different purposes, and in order to interact with different people, while simultaneously allowing to showcase the complexity of overlapping relations. Identify the following entities or qualities: - people - medium used - type of messages - public/private sphere --> <style> .reveal{ font-family:mono; font-size: 25px; } .reveal .censor{ background:black; color:white; } </style>