Digital Essay 1

By senior year of high school I had quit Facebook, yet it is now probably the most used app on my phone, even more than iMessages or Instagram (my self proclaimed social media app of choice). The change happened somewhere during freshman year of college when I got added to the “Oxford Collage class of 2018 and 2019” Facebook group, a page that communicated all the events and important notices for the college. Instantly, I went from being someone who did not see the need for Facebook to someone who needed to look at it constantly for fear of missing some important announcement.

I don’t use Facebook in the traditional way of posting to keep people updated on my life or to let people see who I am, because I don’t believe a page on the Internet is capable of

being a reliable expression of who I am as a person. I agree with the words of Zadie Smith that “when a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced.”

Yet, despite my dislike of the premise of the website, I am so utterly reliant on Facebook because it has become my sole souse of information, as well as method of communication. My Facebook addiction started when I got added to a page that became my Local News source specifically dedicated to my college, but my addiction got much worse when all the new friends I had made at college began using Facebook messenger as their primary source of communication.

I initially thought Facebook messaging was a bit weird. I was taken aback by how someone who didn’t have my physical number could contact me by just knowing my name. This felt far less personal to me then having to exchange numbers with someone first, but as the semester went by I began to see the advantages of being able to contact some random person you were partnered with for a group project that you never intended on contacting again after the assignment. My relationship with Facebook soon became more and more dependent and with that came some benefits, but also some detriments as well.

My reliance on Facebook has caused me become a gadget so reliant on the Internet and what I consider to be its “lock-in” feature, Facebook. I define a gadget as an individual who assimilates technology so completely into their lives that they blindly accept the limitations of digital media as permanent and unavoidable. This definition stems from Manovich’s idea in “There is only Software” where he claims that we as humans become extensions of our gadgets because “all the new qualities of “digital media”are not situated “inside” the media objects.” As extensions of our gadgets we also begin to blindly accept what Lanier defines as “Lock-in” features of our devices, which we believe, are programs that are inherently part of the gadget’s composition. According to Lanier a “lock-in” is “like a wave gradually washing over the rulebook of life, culling the ambiguities of flexible thoughts as more and more thought structures are solidified into effectively permanent reality.” (You are not a gadget) Facebook has become what I perceive was a “lock-in feature of the internet because I have become so dependent on its messaging and the information is provides me that I have become lazy in my attempt to break away from my need for the site and have just accepted it as a site that is a necessary part of the internet. This becomes problematic however, because I subject myself to the limitations of Facebook.

The two limitations I subject myself to by being so depended on Facebook are the easy access to information, and the very common glitching of Facebook messenger. I myself fall into the trap of easy access to information more then I wish to admit. Specifically in regard to my college, I do not know where else to look for information about current events and this severely limits my information if the internet is down or Facebook does not load for any number of reasons. Facebook messenger does have some beneficial features that outweigh its issues, which is why I continue to use it despite its faults. One of the major benefits of this feature of Facebook is that you can message someone even if you are not friends with the person you are trying to message (so long as that person accepts your message request). The easy access to messaging people has been extremely useful to me and has even led me to develop stronger friendships with people with whom I had previously never exchanged numbers. But this easy access to communication also has its downfalls, especially if the Internet goes down or the programing glitches and either doesn’t send the messages or does not give you a notification that you received a message. I myself felt very much like a Gadget the other week when my absolute dependence on Facebook messenger left me unable to contact my one friend during an Internet outage on campus because we had never exchanged numbers.

Facebook has its advantages and disadvantages. While I understand that my dependence on Facebook is heavily due to the fact that I haven’t explored other places on the internet that may better suite my needs, I also know that Facebook has been able to sufficiently provide me with information and communication that, until the limitations outweigh the positive effect I will continue to use and be made a gadget.

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