---
# System prepended metadata

title: Reading Responses (Set 2)
tags: [CDA]

---

###### tags: `CDA`
# Reading Responses (Set 2)


## Reading responses 5 out of 5

### Tuesday, March 23 - Finding someone & living alone
A man claiming to be six feet tall in his profile when he is actually two inches shorter is not the only misconception of online dating. The skepticism and paranoia surrounding online data are often unfounded, as online dating sites not only reproduce the offline dating world but also surpass it in many ways. Internet dating expands the pool of potential partners to include individuals you otherwise would not have come across, and it encourages quicker marriage timelines through more calculated selection. Those skeptical about online dating may argue that dating sites make people more superficial and overwhelmed by choice, but this takes place in the offline dating world too. 

In a similar vein, fallacies also surround solo dwellers, with many portraying such individuals as fragmented from society and isolated. This viewpoint does consider the various factors that have led to a spike in people living alone, such as increase in wealth, cultural pressure to prioritize one’s well-being, superconnectedness, and longer life expectancy. Because quality supersedes quantity of social interaction, there is little evidence that living alone equates to feeling lonely. Furthermore, young adults increasingly view living alone as a symbol of success and freedom, using the experience to invest in themselves personally and professionally. 

The incorrect beliefs associated with online dating and living alone remind us again that correlation is not causation. For example, Rosenfeld states that while there are online sites that foster hook-up culture, there are also platforms that cater to people looking for long-term relationships, and people who meet their partners online can actually be more committed to their relationship. 

I am curious as to how the algorithms of dating sites determine what is a good match. Although the dating pool is expanded with online dating, the one you encounter is not necessarily more diverse. The online world should not have the same constraints of racial segregation that the offline world has, but personal demographics are used by sites to get the fit just right. Just as how privacy is sacrificed for advertising revenue, it is again sacrificed to find the perfect match. Does this type of filtering prevent you from finding your true soulmate? Could this be considered racist? 

### Friday, March 26 - Breakup 
Even Spotify playlists can be used today to indicate one’s feelings toward an ex following a break-up. A friend of mine and her boyfriend mutually chose to break up because they were both heading off to college, and they had split off amicably. Or so she thought. A few days later, she noticed on Spotify that he had created a playlist titled with her name and filled with angry, aggressive music. She was confused and concerned, not knowing where they stood anymore. 

The scenario demonstrates the social dilemma of breakups. As information-gatherers, we use our preconceived notions of an individual and expectations of communication to interpret their behavior. Gershon identifies that the information asymmetry in a breakup is difficult to solve, as people do not share common understandings about the second-order information afforded by technology. Interpreting a message can be perplexing depending on what an individual believes the structure of a particular technology provides, whether the opposite party is intentionally revealing or concealing information, and what they know or have assumed about the other person. For example, if someone removes photos of their ex on social media, does that mean they are severing all ties? Or is it too painful for them to see the photos every time they are on a social network? To make sense of the situation, exes may stalk each other to look for clues in away messages, relationship status updates, profiles, and more. 

I’m curious as to how interpretations of technology breakups have differed as a result of the pandemic. Because meeting in person may not be prudent, is a phone call more or text message more acceptable? Is it easier to escape former romantic partners because you are not seeing them in class, in the workplace, and on social media? Some people may even be posting less on social media because there is less to report. I suggest that the pandemic may dehumanize and lower the intimacy of breakups because it is simpler for “out of sight, out of mind” to occur. 


### Tuesday, April 6 - Algorithmic discrimination
When a product is manipulated and biased, are the creators of the product at fault or are the users? Search engines and e-commerce websites use personalized algorithms driven by big data to enhance user experience, but customization and optimization are easily afflicted with prejudice. For example, when “beauty” was searched on Google in 2015, image results reinforced Eurocentric beauty standards. Searching for “Asian women” produced highly fetishised and sexualized images. E-commerce websites can also participate in price steering and price discrimination.

Failing to condemn the companies whose products serve as vehicles of societal bias disregards the heavy consequences that can result. The Black Lives Matter movement is just one example, with news reports that delegitimized the cause being prioritized by algorithms. Further investigation into Google’s “rigorous process that involves both live tests and thousands of trained external Search Quality Raters from around the world” is necessary. But it seems like Google is trying to rectify this bias already. When I search “beauty” today on Google, I am pleasantly met with a much more diverse set of images than I would have thought. Searching for “Asian women” results in images that celebrate strong Asian women leaders as well as individuals who have suffered from anti-Asian crimes. I wonder though if this is change is a result of Google’s equity efforts or because of a nationwide cultural shift since Buzzfeed’s investigation in 2016.

On the other hand, it would be imprudent to push one hundred percent of the blame onto Google, Bing, and Yahoo’s shoulders. Although such search engines must proactively weed out mistakes in their systems that can lead to bias, the responsibility is ultimately of their users.

The same cannot be said about e-commerce websites, however. More research like that of Khoury’s Algorithm Auditing Research Group must be conducted, as a multitude of e-commerce websites personalize their content based on trivial factors, such as user browser or device. But which is a greater consequence: paying more than warranted for a plane ticket or distorting the fight against racial injustice?

### Friday, April 9 - Collapsed context 

My primary Instagram profile features carefully curated photographs and captions for hundreds of followers to see, while my “finsta,” second account, includes candid selfies, inside jokes, and memes that only twenty of my closest friends and family can access. This is my way of navigating social contexts, creating a more adventurous, professional, and put-together sense of self on one profile and showing an unfiltered, more “authentic” version of myself on the other. Both Instagram profiles are me, but which one is my "truer" self? As communication accommodation theory suggests, we switch between a repertoire of identities with varying behavior, presenting ourselves differently based on the audience and situation. 

Like Instagram and other social networks, Twitter brings together distinct groups that might not have otherwise interacted before, so how can an individual know who and from which group they are connecting with and thus how to behave? Twitter is an especially public platform, with tweets easily being accessed and spread beyond one’s immediate network, making it even more challenging for users to pinpoint who may actually be reading their tweets with the “collapsed context.” A user’s self-presentation may differ based on their imagined audience, what functions they use Twitter for, and what they perceive as being “authentic.”  boyd and Marwick (2010) claim that context collapse prevents individuals from easily presenting a clear, singular identity on social media, as even personal homepages are observed to be highly managed and optimized for public viewing. 

Self-concept is the stable set of perceptions that individuals hold of themselves and is developed through interaction with others. As online communicators undertake strategic efforts to ensure favorable impressions of their various personas, I expect that one’s self-concept is easily influenced and can become disoriented or even confused. The looking-glass self process may also become skewed and manipulated by haters and trolls on social networks. I may be overlapping self-concept and self-esteem a bit, but I imagine that others may also face a bit of an identity conflict as a result of context collapse. 

### Tuesday, April 12 - Gendered Work 

As romantic as the notion that independent work liberates women from the structural barriers of traditional workplaces is, female self-enterprise presents another quandary: the digital double bind. Discourse surrounding female entrepreneurship glamorizes its increase in recent years, representing a new form of feminist liberation or mystique, and disregards the fact that the same inequalities that often motivate women to leave the traditional workplace follow them in their independent work. Duffy and Pruchniewska (2017) suggest that the success stories are the women who have managed to win at the elusive game of balance, specifically in self-promotion, interactive intimacy, and compulsory visibility. Women must strategically employ subtle, noninvasive marketing tactics while driving consistent growth, and they must take care that their personal selling and relationship-building does not affect business credibility (Duffy & Pruchniewska, 2017). Because self-disclosure and relatability are viewed as akin to female empowerment, the blurring of one’s public and private life becomes a professional decision. 

But the mommy blogs, fashion and beauty blogs, and craft micro-enterprises ought not to be underestimated, and neither should the rise of female entrepreneurship. Do not mistake women’s reluctance to promote their success for failure or less time and energy invested in projects. I argue that the gender expectations that limit women in the traditional workplace enable them to be more successful and resilient in online self-enterprise, especially in media, marketing, or creative fields. Women drive social media growth because social media is “a fundamentally feminized space” and demands expressive communication (Duffy & Pruchniewska, 2017). Although tiresome, the necessary relational labor allows women to build a supportive social network that is key to success in online ventures. 


 


