User As Commodity

Editor's Notes

• #2: Welcome to my research presentation
• #3: Looking at the screen you are sure to recognize a wide variety of social media applications. My research presentation today will explain how social media applications such as these have the ability to determine the value or worth of the user. Companies certainly see value in the users of their applications. They can gain a wealth of information from tracking your activity with their site, your likes, dislikes, among a wide range of information. While companies see you as valuable for the information you are willing to share with them, does the user themselves feel valuable? Do other users feel they are valuable? This project will examine the many different aspects of social media that are in place to rate and decide one’s worth.
• #4: There are many different aspects built into facebook which immediately raises questions of ones self worth. Additionally, with the ability to see the profiles and actions of others, users can compare hundreds of details of their personal lives with others, which may lead them to feel confident, or intimidated. In this slide, I have spoken about how one can obtain an understanding of their self worth from facebook which definitely was present in that video, as the singer sang about excitement and dissapointment – it is clear to see there are a lot of emotions wrapped up in this website. Looking again at that video of Mark singing, he also noted less on self worth, and more on his worth as a “friend”. He explains how he was directly targeted for a friend invite simply so another user could appear to have more friends.
• #5: On YouTube, the understanding of self worth is less self reflective as it was on facebook, and more literal as a users worth is really in the hands of the participating community members. On this website, content creators are directly subject to viewers opinions of themselves and their work. Not only can comments both positive and negative be left on videos and profiles, they can comment on a wide variety of aspects – clothing and appearance, quality of work, social status, among others. Success is measured in the amount of subscribers and viewers a content creator has, which leads to content creators endlessly attempting to recruit more and more people to watch their videos. The idea of ratings and rank on YouTube has grown to the point where even videos discussing who is the #1 YouTube user have received over 1 million views. The way in which YouTube operates is that if many people enjoy and view a users work, it will rise to the top, be promoted and featured, allowing for even more views. If this is not the case, the video views will remain stagnant. Essentially, the only way to receive a lot of views, is to have a lot of return viewers to push your video to the top. This raises questions of value all together. Are the most viewed videos and most popular content creators actually the most valuable members of the youtube community, or did they simply have enough people rallying behind them? This creates a very competitive atmosphere, where every rating, comment, and subscription matters.
• #6: This comic strip explains how a users worth is directly decided by other users of YouTube, which in turn affects if other viewers will view the judged users work. This comic strip shows the power of suggestion in social media and how one user can judge another worthless, without even given them a chance. This sort of collective intelligence can either be very beneficial to the content creator, or can sabotage their creative efforts all together.
• #7: Collective Intelligence – The idea that the ratings and comments of others will determine a new users opinion of another. Similarly, the idea that a user can view the profiles of others for inspiration of their own profile. If everyone in society is aiming to please one another, won’t all profiles end up looking the same? Digital Divide – If ones value is derived from the content they produce online whether it be a facebook profile or a youtube video, certainly those who do not have computer access or those who do not know how to participate must have little value at all. Hype – If a person on facebook or a video on youtube becomes popular, is that because individuals have searched it out, or because the collective intellegence has determined it to be valuable and has made it travel online? Information Overload – Does one really need to be judged or rated by others at all? Do we need these applications to justify our self worth? Participation – How willing are you to put yourself out there to be judged, and do you want to be judged. Are you likely to rate and judge someone else whether it is anonymous or not?